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The Three Little Archwires |
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The Three Little Archwires |
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Purpose
The purpose of this project is to see whether the general mass of orthodontic
archwires will be altered when immersed in an assortment of common drinks during
and after a period of time.
Hypothesis
It is speculated that the masses of the wires immersed in the water, oolong
tea, and mixed berry herbal tea will not be changed because they all seem to
be very mild drinks with little complaint against them (except for the teeth
yellowing with regards to the teas). However it is hypothesized that the brisk
lemonade and apple juice will change the masses ever so slightly due to the
sugar in them while the diet coke and root beer will change the masses the most.
Of course, this is the ?most? being a thousandths of a gram and "ever so
slightly" meaning one hundred thousandths of a gram.
What was done
During the experiment, three kinds of archwires (Stainless Steel, TMA, and Copper
Ni-Ti) were put into seven drinks (water, Diet Coke, Root Beer, Brisk Lemonade,
apple juice, oolong tea, and herbal fruit tea) and weighed three times in total
before the conclusion was made.
Conclusion
After the archwires had been immersed for approximately 52 days 13 hours and
12 minutes, it can be concluded that despite the relatively short amount of
time, all the liquids (even the tap water) have an effect on all the archwires.
It was also discovered that all the mass changes are no smaller than one thousandths
of a gram. The results prove the hypothesis to be about half correct and it
was quite a shock considering the archwires are after all wires.