Development of thermoplastic self-healing panels by 3D printing technology and study extrinsic healing system under low-velocity impact analysis

Abstract

This study introducing self-healing concept into thermoplastic panels for engineering applications. Hence, the base self-healing square shaped panels were manufactured using a common thermoplastic, polylactic acid (PLA), and glass/in-situ vascular channels as healing carriers via 3D printing additive process. 3D printing is the best approach for inserting glass vascular channels and creating insitu channels inside the panels. Two types of healing resins were prepared with polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) and Acrylonitrile 1–3 Butadiene Styrene (ABS) solutions to adjust the chemistry of PLA and healing channels for effective healing without any trouble. A drop weight impact test with the low-velocity mode is conducted on prepared PLA panels. To study the self-healing behaviour of panels 23.05 N-m impact energy was applied to create the initial damage of the PLA panels. The impacted specimens were examined through ultrasonic C-scan for observing the healing process at damaged portion. The experimental results show the effective healing behavior of PLA panels were (after self-healing) about 75% and 80% of PLA-PMMA and PLA-ABS, respectively. This study also deals on the damage model-based numerical study was established on PLA panels using the Ansys workbench to investigate the failure mechanisms of PLA self-healing panels.