(in lingua inglese)
Our fractographic analysis showed that fracture of dental prostheses may initiate from internal thermal flaws, and not exclusively from contact cracks, radial cracks or marginal defects. The fracture origin in the presented case was a thermal flaw that resulted from the layering technique. Fracture was prompted by sliding contact loading and expedited by an internal flaw embedded in a veneering material under considerable thermal residual stresses.