摘要：The finite element method (FEM) has become theprevalent technique used as an effective tool for analyzingall kinds of physical phenomena in structural, solid andfluid mechanics. Moreover it is used for simulating variousprocesses in engineering in the last four decades. A re-markable advantage of the FEM is the chance to study ar-eas that are difficult or impossible to access without anyrisks to a human sample [1]. The FEM has been frequentlyused in various fields of medical studies such as cardiovas-cular mechanics [2, 3], biomechanics of musculoskeletalsystem [5], radiofrequency ablation of liver tumors [5-7] aswell as in ophthalmology [8], neurosurgery [9] and ofcourse, dentistry [10]. Dentistry is an area of medicinewhere the study of human biomechanics such as chewinghas the potential to improve patient care [11]. The use ofFEM allows studying a single tooth, a set of teeth, or eventhe relationship between maxillary and mandibular dentalarches; furthermore, finite element methods can be appliedwith the aim of improving the design of materials, struc-tures and manufacturing procedures, leading to improvedclinical results in dentistry [12]. There are already plentyreports on the modeling and stress analysis of differentconstituent parts of human masticatory system [10]. Butstill there have been very few reports that took FEM as atool for the study of relationship between occlusal surfacesgeometry and forces distribution in the whole masticatorysystem. Geometrical form of occlusal surfaces, spatial ar-rangement of teeth in dental arches and condition of sup-porting structures has crucial influence on masticatoryfunction efficiency. Furthermore, proper geometry of oc-clusal surfaces of posterior teeth determines appropriatedistribution of occlusal load to the supporting structuresand normal activity of masticatory muscles and temporo-mandibular joints. Most of previously performed studieswere directed to the relation between form of occlusal sur-faces and chewing efficiency [13, 14] as well as temporo-mandibular joint pathology [15, 16], whereas the influenceof geometrical form of occlusal surfaces in guiding teethon forces distribution in constituent parts of masticatorysystem is still a little investigated field. Therefore it wasdecided in this study to analyze by means of FEM the in-fluence of geometrical form of a guiding tooth on the dis-tribution of contact forces in constituent parts of humanmasticatory system.
