New plastics could enable car and aircraft components to fix themselves when broken

Imagine a future in which artificial materials can repair themselves – cars and aircraft that heal like human bone and skin. Biological materials can regenerate after damage, but until recently self-repair was almost unknown in artificial materials. New plastics can be designed with atoms and molecules that re-bind after damage to allow machines to fix themselves. Self-healing polymers could vastly improve the durability and safety of critical components in cars and aircraft.

Polymers are materials made of many repeating units connected together, and the best-known examples of polymers are plastics. When man-made polymers suffer excess mechanical or thermal stress, they become irreversibly damaged. The research designs and develops self-repairing polymers by incorporating atoms and molecules that can re-bind after damage. The design process starts with computer simulations, then moves to experimental studies in the lab, before testing prototypes of new materials in real-world situations.

Self-repairing materials could make cars and aircraft that heal themselves like human bone and skin.


Source: The Royal Society.