Dental Appliance Shaped Material Components
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing dental appliances formed from a single sheet of material with uniform thickness lack the ability to reinforce specific areas or provide specialized features, limiting their ability to apply controlled forces or maintain optimal tooth alignment.
Innovation Solution
The method involves forming dental appliances with specialized components created by folding multiple sections of a sheet material over each other, allowing for the creation of thickened portions, precision cut features, and spring-like structures, which can be used to provide reinforcement and controlled force applications.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of manufacture
If a dental appliance is formed from a single sheet of material with uniform thickness, then the appliance is simple to manufacture and lightweight, but it lacks the ability to reinforce specific areas or provide specialized features
Solution Approach 1:
The patent divides the dental appliance into multiple sections or layers, allowing different portions to have different thicknesses and properties. This segmentation enables specific areas to be reinforced while maintaining the overall simplicity of manufacturing the appliance from sheet material.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements local quality by creating varying thicknesses and specialized features in specific areas of the appliance. Certain regions are thickened or given unique structural characteristics to provide reinforcement and specialized functionality where needed, while other areas maintain uniform thickness.
2Ease of manufacture
If the appliance uses uniform thickness throughout, then manufacturing is simplified, but reinforcement of specific areas is not possible
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by creating non-uniform thickness distribution in the appliance. Specific areas are thickened to provide enhanced strength and reinforcement, while other areas maintain thinner uniform thickness, thus achieving both manufacturing simplicity and localized strength enhancement.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces dimensional variation by changing the thickness dimension in specific areas of the appliance. This allows the appliance to have uniform thickness in most areas for easy manufacturing, while incorporating localized thickened sections for reinforcement without complicating the overall manufacturing process.
3Force
If specialized features are added to reinforce areas, then force application is improved, but the appliance structure becomes more complex
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the appliance into distinct functional zones, with specialized features concentrated in specific areas rather than distributed throughout. This allows force application to be enhanced in critical regions while keeping the overall appliance structure relatively simple and manageable.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements local quality by adding specialized reinforcing features only in specific areas where force application is needed, rather than uniformly throughout the entire appliance. This localized approach improves force application capability while minimizing the increase in overall device complexity.
Data Source
AI summary
Dental appliances with shaped material components and methods of forming the same. Methods may include forming a shell to have one or more cavities that are configured to receive a patient's dentition. The shell may be configured to reposition one or more teeth of the patient's dentition toward a new configuration. One or more flaps of material may be folded to form a specialized feature of the dental appliance. The specialized feature may be configured to impart one or more specialized forces to one or more specific locations of the patient's dentition or dental arch.