Abstract
This paper reports a study of self-healing woven glass fabric reinforced epoxy composites.The healing agent was a two-component one synthesized in the authors’ laboratory, whichconsisted of epoxy-loaded urea-formaldehyde microcapsules as the polymerizable binder andCuBr2(2-methylimidazole)4 (CuBr2(2-MeIm)4) as the latent hardener. Both the microcapsules and the matching catalyst werepre-embedded and pre-dissolved in the composites’ matrix, respectively. Whenthe microcapsules are split by propagating cracks, the uncured epoxy can bereleased into the damaged areas and then consolidated under the catalysis ofCuBr2(2-MeIm)4 that was homogeneously distributed in the composites’ matrix on a molecular scale. As aresult, the cracked faces can be bonded together. The influence of the content of theself-healing agent on the composites’ tensile properties, interlaminar fracturetoughness and healing efficiency was evaluated. It was found that a healing efficiencyover 70% relative to the fracture toughness of virgin composites was obtainedin the case of 30 wt% epoxy-loaded microcapsules and 2 wt% latent hardener.
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