Nearly 90-95 % of denture bases are fabricated using acrylic resins. Acrylic resin in many ways comes close to meeting the requirements of an ideal non-metallic denture base material but still it is not without drawbacks. One of the greatest drawbacks is its relatively low resistance to fracture failure. The basic problem that has been faced with the use of polymethylmethacrylate material is the incidence of midline fracture of maxillary denture bases. A number of predisposing factors have been recognized for the incidence of such factors. This study was undertaken to determine whether the shape of the underlying palate combined with the thickness of denture base would affect the strength of base. For the study, 45 denture bases of heat cure acrylic resin were fabricated on 3 different shapes of the palate and of 3 different thicknesses and then all these samples were tested for fracture toughness under the universal testing machine and the results were analysed.

Keywords: Flexural strength, denture base resins, fracture resistance