Introduction: Caries and dental trauma are mostly responsible for the loss of hard tooth tissue. However, other destructive processes that originate on the external surface and affect the teeth and cause irreversible loss to the tooth structure are also described such as erosion, abrasion, attrition and abfraction.
Objective: The purpose of this study was a finite elements method study of the mechanism of abfraction formation caused by external loads.
Material and methods: A two-dimensional mathematical finite elements analysis model was generated for analysis, using intact normal human mandibular canine. The finite elements are type of 2D. A denser mesh with a large number of EF was build in the area of interest in order to obtain the best replica of the tooth and the most faithful analyses of the situation.
Results: As a result of the present study using simulations of different values and positions of the loads, both vertical and oblique, on a healthy tooth, it was evident that the most stress-prone area with the highest risk of mechanic damage is the cervical area of the tooth.
Conclusions: Oblique loads lead to lateral flexure of the tooth and vertical loads lead to axial compression. Vertical direction of loads result in higher values of the stress in the lesionned area. The study shows that one of the possible causes of cervical lesion is the direction and magnitude of loads combined with the morphology of the tooth in question.