Additively Manufactured Self-Healing Structures with Embedded Healing Agent Reservoirs.

ABSTRACT: Self-healing materials with the ability to partially or completely restore their mechanical properties by healing the damage inflicted on them have great potential for applications where there is no or only limited access available to conduct a repair. Here, we demonstrate a bio-inspired new design for self-healing materials, where unit cells embedded in the structure are filled with a UV-curable resin and act as reservoirs for the self-healing agent. This design makes the repeated healing of mechanical damage possible. When a crack propagates and reaches one of these embedded reservoirs, the healing agent is released into the crack plane through the capillary action, and after polymerization through UV light exposure, bonds the crack faces. The structures here were fabricated using a ster

SUBMITTER: Davami K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6522478 | biostudies-literature | 2019 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature