Healing agent for the activation of self-healing function at low temperature

Abstract

The development of smart composites capable of self-repair in aeronautical structures is still at the planning stage owing to complex issues to overcome. It is critical that self-healing activity functions at low working temperatures which can reach values as low as −50 °C. Also, another problem concerns the components’ stability of the proposed composites which are compromised at the cure temperatures necessary for good performance of the composite. Here, we show a multifunctional autonomically healing composite with self-healing function capable at very low temperatures (−50 °C). The self-repair function in this self-healing system is based on the metathesis polymerization of 5-ethylidene-2-norbornene/dicyclopentadiene (ENB/DCPD) blend activated by Hoveyda-Grubbs’1st generation (HG1) catalyst, dispersed at molecular level in the matrix. The formulated material shows a self-healing efficiency of about 72%.