Self Healing Polymers and Composites

Abstract

Structural polymers are susceptible to damage in the form of cracks, which form deep within the structure where detection is difficult and repair is almost impossible. Damage in polymeric coatings, adhesives, microelectronic components, and structural composites can span many length scales. Structural composites subject to impact loading can sustain significant damage on centimeter length scales, which in turn can lead to subsurface millimeter-scale delaminations and micron-scale matrix cracking (Figure 1).