Micromechanical Modeling of Self-Healing Polymer Composites

Initiation of cracks is one of the factors that could weaken the mechanical properties of polymer composites and eventually cause failure. Self-healing materials are one kind of materials that can repair their damage such as cracks. Therefore, in this paper the encapsulation-based materials that are produced by inserting healing-fluid-filled capsules into the matrix have been studied; when the internal cracks start to appear and break the capsules, healing agents are released and crack will be healed. However, these capsules should be designed with an appropriate diameter, shape, volume fraction and material to break properly. Using a micromechanical method, the effective parameters have been investigated. The results indicated that the tensile stiffness and strength of polymer composites decrease with the increase in the volume fraction of microcapsules. In addition, there is an optimum volume fraction and diameter for healing capsules. The modeling results have been validated by comparing to available experimental data in the literature.

Keywords:

Self-Healing , Polymer Composites , Micromechanics , Crack , Modeling.