Simulation of Galvanic Corrosion in Medical Devices Used in Orthopedic Surgeries

In this work we perform a simulation of galvanic corrosion in medical devices used in orthopedic surgeries. The medical devices involved in the simulation are made of 316L stainless steel and grade V titanium (Ti6Al4V). In particular, we take as a study case six surgical events (in the same patient), reported to the corporate IMT. With the simulation we were able to obtain, for all cases, the potential distribution, the current density distribution, the corrosion rate and the corrosion penetration rate. The purpose of this study is to investigate the extent to which galvanic corrosion can induce poisoning from metal deposition in a patient body. Our findings indicate that none of the analyzed cases showed a significant corrosion rate exceeding the safety limit of 1 μm/year.