Waxes

The rheological properties of Waxes are of considerable interest in dentistry. Yet the only adopted method of characterizing them in this respect is arbitrary and uninterpretable. The intention was to identify a means of doing so in an objective fashion. It to a variety of products to establish the scope of behavior.

7 orders of magnitude in viscosity, 7 in terminal velocity, and 3 in load. Waxes were shown to be pseudoplastic, lacking any identifiable yield point. And having marked departures from Newtonian behavior. The pseudoplasticity followed a power law. The exponent of which (the pseudoplasticity parameter) was temperature dependent in a complex manner. But which showed a definite relationship to the reduced temperature. Referred to the liquidus temperature.

But also because of discontinuities in the isothermal contours attributed to stress-melting of components of the wax mixture. Under 10 N load as the common logarithm of the falling ball apparent viscosity in order to characterize the flow behavior of dental waxes with a single convenient number.