Fiber reinforced orthodontic appliance and method of manufacture
AssigneeMinnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company
InventorsRandall E. Adam, James D. Cleary, Jerold S. Horn, Said Pazirandeh
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Abstract
An orthodontic appliance such as a bracket is made of a polymeric material with reinforcing fiber structure embedded in the polymeric material. The reinforcing fiber structure includes relatively long filaments that extend about the perimeter of the bracket including the periphery of an archwire slot. In one embodiment, a method for making the bracket includes the steps of placing a tubular fiber preform in a mold assembly in an orientation aligned with a mesial-distal axis of the resultant bracket, and then closing the mold assembly in directions toward a central axis of the preform.
Claims15
An orthodontic appliance comprising a body having an elongated archwire slot and a mesial-distal reference axis, said archwire slot having a certain generally U-shaped periphery in reference planes generally perpendicular to said mesial-distal reference axis, said body being made of polymeric material and reinforcing fiber structure embedded in said polymeric material, said reinforcing fiber structure including at least one filament and comprising at least on layer, said at least one layer including a number of aligned, side-by-side stretches of said at least one filament that lie in said reference planes and extend in a non-straight path about a majority of said generally U-shaped periphery of said archwire slot.
An orthodontic appliance comprising a body having an elongated archwire slot and a mesial-distal reference axis, said archwire slot having a certain generally U-shaped periphery in reference planes generally perpendicular to said mesial-distal reference axis, said body being made of polymeric material and reinforcing fiber structure embedded in said polymeric material, said reinforcing fiber structure including a number of side-by-side stretches of one or more filaments that extend in a non-straight path about a majority of said generally U-shaped periphery of said archwire slot.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.