Long-term bone healing/adaptation after a dental implant treatment starts with diffusion of mesenchymal stem cells to the wounded region and their subsequent differentiation. The healing phase is followed by the bone-remodeling phase. In this work, a mechano-regulatory cellular differentiation model was used to simulate tissue healing around an immediately loaded dental implant. All tissue types were modeled as poroelastic in the healing phase. Material properties of the healing region were updated after each loading cycle for 30 cycles (days). The tissue distribution in the healed state was then used as the initial condition for the remodeling phase during which regions healed into bone adapt their apparent density with respect to a homeostatic remodeling stimulus. The short- (bone healing) and long-term (bone remodeling) effects of initial implant micromotion during the healing phase were studied. Development of soft tissue was observed both in the coronal region due to high fluid velocity, and on the vertical sides of the healing-gap due to high shear stress. In cases with small implant micromotion, tissue between the implant threads differentiated into bone during the healing phase but resorbed during remodeling. In cases with large implant micromotion, higher percentage of the healing region differentiated into soft tissue resulting in smaller volume of bone tissue available for remodeling. However, the remaining bone region developed higher density bone tissue. It was concluded that an optimal range of initial implant micromotion could be designed for a specific patient in order to achieve the desired long-term functional properties.

Metallic microparticles can acquire remarkable nanoscale morphologies after experiencing high velocity collisions, but materials science regarding the extreme events has been limited due to a lack of controlled experiments. In this work, collision dynamics and nonlinear material characteristics of aluminum microparticles are investigated through precise single particle collisions with two distinctive substrates, sapphire and aluminum, across a broad range of collision velocities, from 50 to 1,100 m/s. An empirical constitutive model is calibrated based on the experimental results, and is used to investigate the mechanics of particle deformation history. Real-time and post-impact characterizations, as well as model based simulations, show that significant material flow occurs during the impact, especially with the sapphire substrate. A material instability stemming from plasticity-induced heating is identified. The presented methodology, based on the use of controlled single particle impact data and constitutive models, provides an innovative approach for the prediction of extreme material behavior.

Applied pressure in chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) is shared by the two-body pad–wafer and the three-body pad–abrasive–wafer contacts. The fraction of applied pressure transferred through the particle contacts is a significant factor as most of the material removal is due to abrasive particles trapped in the pad–wafer interface. In this work, the contact of a rough, deformable pad and a smooth, rigid wafer with rigid particles in the contact interface is investigated by using contact mechanics and finite element modeling. The interactions between the pad, wafer, and abrasive particles are modeled at different scales of contact, starting from the particle–pad level and gradually expanding to the multiasperity contact of the pad and the wafer. Wear rate due to each abrasive particle is calculated based on the wafer–abrasive particle contact force and by considering adhesive and abrasive wear mechanisms. A thin passivated layer on the wafer surface is modeled to consider the effect of chemical reactions between slurry and wafer. Good agreement between the model and the experimental literature is found for the relationships between material removal rate and applied pressure, pad elastic modulus and porosity, particle size and concentration, and pad roughness and wafer hardness.

Specific mechanisms underlying the critical velocity in cold gas particle spray applications are still being discussed, mainly due to limited access to in situ experimental observation and the complexity of modeling the particle impact process. In this work, particle bonding in the cold spray (CS) process was investigated by the finite element (FE) method. An effective interfacial cohesive strength parameter was defined in the particle–substrate contact regions. Impact of four different metals was simulated, using a range of impact velocities and varying the effective cohesive strength values. Deformation patterns of the particle and the substrate were characterized. It was shown that the use of interfacial cohesive strength leads to a critical particle impact velocity that demarcates a boundary between rebounding and bonding type responses of the system. Such critical bonding velocities were predicted for different interfacial cohesive strength values, suggesting that the bonding strength in particle–substrate interfaces could span a range that depends on the surface conditions of the particle and the substrate. It was also predicted that the quality of the particle bonding could be increased if the impact velocity exceeds the critical velocity. A method to predict a lower bound for the interfacial bonding energy was also presented. It was shown that the interfacial bonding energy for the different materials considered would have to be at least on the order of 10–60 J/m² for cohesion to take place. The general methodology presented in this work can be extended to investigate various materials and impact conditions.