MIRACLE is a project that aims to develop an advanced system for the design, simulation and flexible manufacture of implant-supported dental prostheses. Dental implants are screwed directly into the mandible or jaw, and it is to these that dental prostheses are anchored. The design and manufacture of dental prostheses is a very skilled process that involves high time costs and a method that lacks, in many cases, functional design specifications.
The aim is the evaluate the functional characteristics of a prosthesis and its biomechanical features so as to develop a just-in-time system that will enable the placement of the implants and prosthesis in a single intervention, such cases are known as immediate loading cases, and that avoids a healing period and removes the need for a second procedure.
The developed system in MIRACLE is a CAD/CAM system which allows to test the functional characteristics of dental prostheses considering mandible-maxilla interaction using virtual models, contrary to most commercial solutions where this test is performed using expensive anatomical replicas tested with mechanical articulators and evaluated with patients. Another objective of MIRACLE is to develop a parametric finite elements model (FEM) of the whole prosthesis in order to analyze the failure risk of dental implants and prostheses before its surgical implantation enabling a re-design process.