Computational Corrosion Modeling for Biodegradable Magnesium Alloy Stents: Progress, Challenges, and Future Directions.

Biodegradable magnesium alloys, owing to their mechanical compatibility with vascular tissues, excellent biocompatibility, and biodegradability, have broad application prospects in implantable biomedical devices such as cardiovascular stents. However, when the degradation rate is not well matched to the required duration of radial support, or when degradation exhibits significant spatial heterogeneity, premature deterioration of mechanical integrity or even structural failure may occur before the stent has fulfilled its intended support function. Computational modeling serves as a core technological approach for stent design and performance prediction. Corrosion damage models based on finite element analysis (FEA) and continuum damage mechanics (CDM) can quantitatively analyze morphological evolution and time-dependent changes in mechanical performance during stent degradation, predict degradation rates and critical failure locations, and provide crucial theoretical support for stent structural optimization and degradation rate regulation. This paper systematically reviews the research progress in numerical simulation corrosion models for biodegradable magnesium alloy stents (MAS), focusing on summarizing the core methods and limitations of existing models. Based on this, it proposes future research directions to achieve accurate prediction and mechanistic analysis of MAS degradation behavior.