A Physical Approach to Simulate the Corrosion of Ceramic-Coated Magnesium Implants

Abstract

Magnesium-based biodegradable materials are currently of great interest in various biomedical applications, especially those related to the treatment of bone trauma and the manufacturing of bone implants. Due to the complexity of the degradation process of magnesium, several numerical models were developed to help predict the change of the implant’s integrity in the body using in vitro tests. In this study, experimental in vitro tests and finite element methods are combined to calibrate a diffusion-based model of the uniform galvanic corrosion of high purity magnesium (HP-Mg). In addition, and for the first time, the impact of a porous coating layer generated by the Micro Arc oxidation (MAO) method is investigated and incorporated into the model. The calibrated model parameters are validated using the same immersion test conditions on a near-standard of treatment screws geometry made of HP-Mg.

Keywords

• biodegradable
• corrosion
• modeling
• magnesium
• implants