JOURNAL OF ENDODONTICS

Copyright 2004 by The American Association of Endodontists

Printed in U.S.A.
VOL. 31, NO. 1, JANUARY 2005

SEM Observations of Nickel-Titanium Rotary

Endodontic Instruments that Fractured During
Clinical Use
Satish B. Alapati, BDS, MS, William A. Brantley, PhD, Timothy A. Svec, DDS, MS, MS,
John M. Powers, PhD, John M. Nusstein, DDS, MS, and Glenn S. Daehn, PhD

purpose of this investigation was to use scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to examine many nickel-titanium instruments of three
popular brands that had been discarded after clinical use and to
gain insight into the mechanisms for failure of these instruments.
These SEM observations have revealed surface features relevant to
the failure processes that have not been previously reported, and
suggestions are offered about minimizing the clinical failure of
these instruments.

Numerous discarded ProFile GT, ProFile, and ProTaper nickel-titanium rotary instruments obtained
from two graduate endodontic clinics were examined by scanning electron microscopy. These instruments had an unknown history of clinical use and
had fractured or experienced considerable permanent torsional deformation without complete separation. The failure processes generally exhibited
substantial ductile character, evidenced by a
dimpled rupture fracture surface. Crack propagation at grain boundaries and cleavage surfaces
indicative of transgranular fracture were observed for some specimens. It appeared that oxide
particles from the manufacturing process served as
nucleating sites for the microvoids, leading to dimpled rupture. A previously unreported fracture mode
also was observed, in which crack propagation,
approximately parallel to the local flute orientation, connected pitted regions on the surface.
Combining present and previous scanning electron microscopy observations of clinically failed
instruments, suggestions are offered for improving their fracture resistance.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

A total of 822 ProFile, ProFile GT, and ProTaper nickel-titanium rotary endodontic instruments (Dentsply Tulsa Dental, Tulsa,
OK) that had been discarded in graduate endodontic clinics at The
Ohio State University and the University of Texas Dental Branch
at Houston were collected. Generally, these instruments were discarded after six to eight clinical uses or after evident permanent
deformation was observed. The discarded instruments were originally 19-, 21-, or 25-mm long, with ISO tip sizes ranging from size
17 to size 30. For the 175 discarded ProFile instruments, 122
instruments (70%) had no evidence of visible deformation,
whereas 39 instruments (22%) had experienced evident permanent
deformation and 14 instruments (8%) had fractured. For the 595
discarded ProFile GT instruments, 536 instruments (90%) had no
evidence of visible deformation, whereas 43 instruments (7%) had
experienced evident permanent deformation and 16 instruments
(3%) had fractured. For the 52 discarded ProTaper instruments, 30
instruments (58%) had no evidence of visible deformation, and 10
instruments (19%) had experienced evident permanent deformation and 12 instruments (23%) had fractured.
More than 30 of these clinically discarded, rotary, nickel-titanium instruments were selected for detailed examination with two
scanning electron microscopes. These instruments were first
cleaned ultrasonically in ethanol, and a wide range of magnifications was used to gain insight into the macroscopic nature of the
fracture process for those instruments in which separation had
occurred, as well as the fine-scale microstructural features on the
fracture surfaces. Both secondary electron images (topographic
contrast) and backscattered electron images (atomic number contrast) were acquired. Qualitative X-ray energy-dispersive spectroscopic (EDS) spot analyses also were performed to identify the

The widespread popularity of nickel-titanium (NiTi) rotary instruments arises from the relatively low elastic modulus of the nickeltitanium alloy, which permits use of these instruments in curved
root canals that would present considerable difficulty for stainlesssteel instruments (1). The nickel-titanium alloy composition is
based on the equiatomic intermetallic compound NiTi (2, 3), and
these instruments are entirely fabricated by a machining process, in
contrast to the twisting of tapered wire blanks that has been used
for the traditional manufacturing of stainless steel instruments.
Although several recent studies (4 12) have examined the structure, microstructural defects, wear, and properties of the nickeltitanium instruments, many questions remain about the mechanisms for their failure during the clinical treatment of patients. The
40

Vol. 31, No. 1, January 2005

Observations of Endodontic Instruments

41

general nature of selected microstructural constituents. This sample of clinically discarded instruments displayed very similar fracture surface characteristics, which will be presented and discussed
in the following two sections, respectively.
RESULTS
Three representative photomicrographs have been selected for
Figs. 1 to 3, which present the most important features observed on
the fracture surfaces of the extensive number of clinically failed
instruments examined with the SEM. Because there is a considerable difference in the scales of the microstructural (Figs. 1 and 2)
and surface (Fig. 3) features being shown, substantially different
magnifications were needed for the optimum SEM images.
Figure 1 is a representative high-magnification SEM photomicrograph (2,500 original magnification) of the fracture surface of
a clinically failed ProTaper instrument. Following interpretations
in references on the fractography of metals (13, 14), this fracture
surface presents evidence of dimpled rupture, the characteristic

FIG 1. Secondary electron image of the fracture surface of a ProTaper rotary instrument, showing elongated dimples indicative of
ductile fracture and secondary phase particles which may be nickeltitanium oxides (original magnification, 2500; scale bar length, 6 m).

FIG 2. Secondary electron image of the fracture surface of a ProFile

GT instrument, showing transgranular (cleavage) fracture and intergranular fracture along grain boundaries (original magnification,
7500; scale bar length, 3 m).

FIG 3. Secondary electron image of a ProFile instrument, showing

two lines of fracture along the axis of the instrument, each of which
passed through pits on the concave flute surface. The void and
other features below the instrument are on the mounting tape used
with the SEM specimen holder (original magnification, 200; scale
bar length, 150 m).

signature of ductile fracture, in which failure occurs after significant permanent deformation (13). The elongated circular or cuplike dimples arise from the nucleation of microvoids at particles in
the microstructure and their growth during the fracture process.
Some of these particles are evident in Fig. 1 and are presumed to
be nickel-titanium oxides (15), although an alternative interpretation (16) of nickel-titanium binary phases is possible. These particles formed during the original manufacturing process when the
nickel-titanium alloy was cast and subsequently subjected to thermomechanical processing to create the wires that were machined to
fabricate the instruments. Similar SEM evidence of dimpled rupture has been shown previously in observations of stainless-steel,
rotary, endodontic instruments loaded in laboratory tests to failure
in torsion (1719) and bending fatigue (20). The dimples on the
fracture surfaces of clinically failed, nickel-titanium instruments
were invariably much shallower than those observed in these
previous studies of stainless-steel, rotary instruments fractured in
vitro.
In contrast, Fig. 2, which presents the fracture surface for a
clinically failed ProFile GT instrument, shows evidence of transgranular (cleavage) fracture across grains, as well as intergranular
fracture along grain boundaries. This type of fracture pattern also
was observed for other clinically fractured nickel-titanium instruments. A subgrain structure appears to exist within larger grains,
and the apparent grain boundary fractures are more closely spaced
than the approximately 10-m grain size for this microstructure.
Separated layers can be seen that impart a localized pattern resembling striations to the fracture surface. Voids or regions of separation between some grains also are evident in Fig. 2, and suggest
the loss of small grains, subgrains, or secondary phase particles
during the fracture process. Although this type of fracture surface
may correspond to a ductile fracture process, it is distinctively
different from Fig. 1.
Figure 3 shows a previously unreported fracture mode that was
observed for many clinically failed nickel-titanium rotary instruments, in which crack propagation occurs approximately parallel to
the local flute orientation and connects pitted regions on the
surface. The characteristic metal rollover at the edges of the flutes,
which is a consequence of the machining process for fabricating

42

Alapati et al.

Journal of Endodontics

these instruments, also is prominent in Fig. 3, along with the

characteristic pattern of machining grooves on the instrument
surface (1).
As noted previously, there were numerous clinically discarded,
nickel-titanium, rotary instruments examined in this study that had
experienced substantial permanent torsional deformation but had
not separated completely. These instruments had a characteristic
local unfluted appearance along a portion of their working
lengths, but their surfaces were otherwise very similar to regions
for the instrument in Fig. 3 in which the cracks are absent.

DISCUSSION
It is evident that the large number of nickel-titanium rotary
instruments observed with the SEM in this study experienced a
variety of fracture processes during clinical separation (Figs. 13).
The fractured ProTaper instruments generally displayed the dimpled rupture features shown in Fig. 1. These dimples, which are
indicative of ductile fracture, also were generally observed on the
fracture surfaces of the ProFile GT and ProTaper instruments.
Many fractured ProFile GT instruments typically had microstructural regions similar to Fig. 2, and similar features were found on
the fracture surfaces of the ProTaper and ProFile instruments. The
axial crack pattern in Fig. 3 was a common feature on the surfaces
of fractured ProFile instruments but was not observed for the
fractured ProTaper and ProFile GT instruments, presumably because of their different design and cross-sectional shape.
Our observations of many clinically fractured instruments suggest that these instruments largely experience ductile fracture. This
mode of failure is desirable because brittle fracture, which takes
places abruptly without significant permanent deformation (13),
would provide no warning about imminent instrument fracture.
Depending on the microstructure, elastic modulus, and permanent
deformation behavior of an alloy, the dimples on the fracture
surface at the microscopic level (requiring 1000 magnification
for adequate observation), which are indicative of ductile fracture,
can have a deep conical shape or be quite shallow (14). The
formation of shallow dimples may involve the joining of microvoids by shear along slip bands. The significance of the shallow
dimples on the fracture surfaces of the nickel-titanium rotary
instruments compared with the deeper dimples previously observed for fractured stainless steel rotary instruments (1720) is
presently unknown. The shallow dimples are not attributed to the
much lower elastic modulus for the nickel-titanium alloy compared
with that for stainless steel (1), because typically the permanent
deformation before fracture of a ductile metal is much greater than
the elastic deformation (13). Further research is necessary to provide a complete explanation of these shallow dimples in terms of
the permanent deformation behavior of the nickel-titanium instruments before fracture, which may have considerable practical
importance. The elongated dimples found on the fracture surfaces
of the clinically failed nickel-titanium rotary instruments reveal the
role of shear stress (from torsional loading) in causing fracture, and
the open nature of many dimples is associated with tearing during
the fracture process. Because the microvoids that result in dimple
formation are nucleated at particles that are probably nickel-titanium oxides (15), the relative concentration of such particles may
provide a means of comparing the metallurgical quality of the
nickel-titanium alloys used by different manufacturers to fabricate
the rotary instruments.

The characteristic striations or layered fracture patterns that can

be seen in Fig. 2 are not considered to be the striations associated
with conventional fatigue fracture, which results from a large
number of repetitive loading cycles at stress levels below that in
which permanent deformation normally occurs (13). The typical
periods of a few seconds of instrumentation with a low-speed
handpiece under clinical conditions are insufficient to generate the
well-known striations (13, 14) that are characteristic of high-cycle
fatigue failure in metals. Such striations were evident on the
fracture surfaces of stainless-steel rotary instruments that failed in
bending fatigue after relatively high numbers of cycles (20). In
another study, we observed similar fatigue striations on the fracture
surfaces of nickel-titanium rotary instruments after large numbers
of cycles in the same bending fatigue apparatus, and these observations will be published in the future.
At present, the origin of the pits in clinically fractured specimens similar to the specimen in Fig. 3 is unknown, although likely
causes are machining damage during instrument fabrication or
secondary phase particles or precipitates that were created during
the original casting and thermomechanical processing of the alloy.
This hypothesis is consistent with the need for scrupulous care
during original alloy preparation before machining the instrument
and to have the highest possible metallurgical quality for the
starting nickel-titanium alloy.
In a complementary SEM study of clinically used rotary nickeltitanium instruments, we hypothesized that dentinal chips embedded in machining grooves (and possibly in the metal rollover) may
have a pivotal role for in vivo instrument fracture (21). It is
possible that embedded dentinal chips, which are no longer observed on the fracture surface, had a role in the crack propagation
process shown in Fig. 3. It is evident that, besides the need for high
metallurgical quality of the nickel-titanium alloy, innovative manufacturing strategies are required to improve the fracture resistance
of these instruments. One approach for the ProFile GT, ProFile,
and ProTaper instruments might be electropolishing to minimize
surface machining damage, although considerable care would be
necessary to avoid degrading the cutting ability of the fluted
regions. Another promising approach is use of ion implantation to
modify surface properties of nickel-titanium instruments. Nitrogen
ion implantation has been found to improve wear behavior of
ProFile instruments (7), and boron ion implantation (22) improves
surface hardness of the nickel-titanium alloy.
We hypothesize that the clinical fracture of nickel-titanium
rotary instruments is largely caused by a single overload incident
(that causes ductile fracture) during instrumentation, rather than
the result of significant alloy fatigue after a large number of
loading cycles. This conjecture is plausible, because the number of
stress cycles during expected normal clinical use, or at which
visible permanent deformation is observed and the instrument
discarded, would generally be insufficient to cause true fatigue
fracture (13). Such overloading can be caused by local embedment
of dentinal chips in machining grooves (21) or from a general
torsional stress increase in the bulk instrument caused by inadvertent wedging in the root canal wall. The instrument design is
critically important for the level of overload stress in the latter case,
and this will be discussed in a subsequent publication.
The authors thank Dr. Sreenivas Bhattiprolu, Department of Geological
Sciences, for expert scanning electron microscopy assistance.
Dr. Alapati is affiliated with the Section of Oral Biology, College of Dentistry, Dr. Brantley is affiliated with the Section of Restorative and Prosthetic
Dentistry, College of Dentistry, Dr. Nusstein is affiliated with the Section of
Endodontics, College of Dentistry, and Dr. Daehn is affiliated with the Depart-

Vol. 31, No. 1, January 2005

ment of Materials Science and Engineering, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH. Dr. Svec is affiliated with the Division of Endodontics, and Dr.
Powers is affiliated with the Department of Restorative Dentistry and Biomaterials, The University of Texas Dental Branch at Houston, Houston, TX.
Address requests for reprints to Dr. William A. Brantley, Section of Restorative and Prosthetic Dentistry, College of Dentistry, The Ohio State University, Mailbox #191, P.O. Box 182357, 305 West 12th Avenue, Columbus,
OH 43218-2357. E-mail: brantley.1@osu.edu

References
1. Walia H, Brantley WA, Gerstein H. An initial investigation of the bending
and torsional properties of Nitinol root canal files. J Endod 1988;14:346 51.
2. Brantley WA. Orthodontic wires. In: Brantley WA, Eliades T, eds. Orthodontic materials: scientific and clinical aspects. Stuttgart: Thieme, 2001:77
103.
3. Thompson SA. An overview of nickel-titanium alloys used in dentistry.
Int Endod J 2000;33:297310.
4. Brantley WA, Svec TA, Iijima M, Powers JM, Grentzer TH. Differential
scanning calorimetric studies of nickel-titanium rotary endodontic instruments. J Endod 2002;28:56772.
5. Brantley WA, Svec TA, Iijima M, Powers JM, Grentzer TH. Differential
scanning calorimetric studies of nickel-titanium rotary endodontic instruments
after simulated clinical use. J Endod 2002;28:774 8.
6. Kuhn G, Tavernier B, Jordan L. Influence of structure on nickel-titanium
endodontic instruments failure. J Endod 2001;27:516 20.
7. Rapisarda E, Bonaccorso A, Tripi TR, Condorelli GG, Torrisi L. Wear of
nickel-titanium endodontic instruments evaluated by scanning electron microscopy: effect of ion implantation. J Endod 2001;27:588 92.
8. Tygesen YA, Steiman HR, Ciavarro C. Comparison of distortion and
separation utilizing ProFile and Pow-R nickel-titanium rotary files. J Endod
2001;27:762 4.
9. Gambarini G. Cyclic fatigue of nickel-titanium rotary instruments after

Observations of Endodontic Instruments

43

clinical use with low- and high-torque endodontic motors. J Endod 2001;27:
772 4.
10. Tripi TR, Bonaccorso A, Tripi V, Condorelli GG, Rapisarda E. Defects
in GT rotary instruments after use: an SEM study. J Endod 2001;27:7825.
11. Sattapan B, Nervo GJ, Palamara JEA, Messer HH. Defects in rotary
nickel-titanium files after clinical use. J Endod 2000;26:1615.
12. Eggert C, Peters O, Barbakow F. Wear of nickel-titanium Lightspeed
instruments evaluated by scanning electron microscopy. J Endod 1999;25:
494 7.
13. Dieter GE. Mechanical metallurgy. 3rd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill,
1986:8 10, 254 6, 262 4, 375 80, 390 2, 394 8.
14. In: Metals handbook. 9th ed. Vol 12. Fractography. Metals Park, OH:
ASM International, 1987:1271.
15. Melton KN. Ni-Ti based shape memory alloys. In: Duerig TW, Melton
KN, Stckel D, Wayman CM, eds. Engineering aspects of shape memory
alloys. London: Butterworth-Heinemann, 1990:2135.
16. Goldstein D, Kabacoff L, Tydings J. Stress effects on nitinol phase
transformations. J Metals 1987;39:19 26.
17. Luebke NH, Brantley WA. Torsional and metallurgical properties of
rotary endodontic instruments. II. Stainless steel Gates Glidden drills. J Endod
1991;17:319 23.
18. Luebke NH, Brantley WA, Sabri ZI, Luebke JH. Physical dimensions,
torsional performance, and metallurgical properties of rotary endodontic instruments. III. Peeso drills. J Endod 1992;18:13 8.
19. Luebke NH, Brantley WA, Sabri ZI, Luebke FL, Lausten LL. Physical
dimensions, torsional performance, bending properties, and metallurgical
characteristics of rotary endodontic instruments. VI. Canal Master drills.
J Endod 1995;21:259 63.
20. Brantley WA, Luebke NH, Luebke FL, Mitchell JC. Performance of
engine-driven rotary endodontic instruments with a superimposed bending
deflection: V. Gates Glidden and Peeso drills. J Endod 1994;20:2415.
21. Alapati SB, Brantley WA, Svec TA, Powers JM, Nusstein JM, Daehn
GS. Proposed role of embedded dentin chips for the clinical failure of nickeltitanium rotary instruments. J Endod 2004;30:339 41.
22. Lee DH, Park B, Saxena A, Serene TP. Enhanced surface hardness by
boron implantation in Nitinol alloy. J Endod 1996;22:543 6.