The effect of healing time on the self-healing efficiency of carbon fibre reinforced polymer composites

Abstract

This paper reports the experimental investigations on the self-healing mechanism inside carbon fibre reinforced polymer composites. The fibre matrix composites are prepared according to the ASTM for the flexural testing. For the self healing purpose the specimens are prepared with ingenious hollow glass capillaries to serve the healing agent locally at the sight of failure. As the crack initiates and propagates through the matrix, the healing begins through polymerization of healing agent in the presence of catalyst. The specimens were subjected to cyclic flexural loading first to get a pre healed specimen and then loaded in the subsequent cycles post healing. The strength of healed specimen is finally compared with the strength virgin specimens having no self healing mechanisms for the reference purpose. The healing efficiency is observed between 45%-55% for different set of healing times. The presented SEM investigations support the concept of the self-healing further.