SHAPE FORMING
healing materials are designed with the capability to repair themselves if they are damaged – without needing manual repair. Here, the goal is to extend the lifespan of materials and their applications and, in some cases, the healed material boasts greater properties than it did in its pre- damaged state.
TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE? Design engineers might think this too good to be true, and they’d be right, to an extent. In fact, many developments in the study of self-healing materials, and numerous projects, are underway for the transport industry. They
include Lamborghini’s partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) that, in 2017, announced a self-healing concept car, the Terzo Millennio, for which many of the developments remain conceptual in nature. However, this should not stop engineers from considering the potential of these materials or how they will come to affect vehicle designs in the years ahead. Before examining how self-healing
materials might benefit transport applications, we must first define what a self-healing material is. As outlined in the Matmatch A–Z of smart materials whitepaper, self-healing
materials include mainly polymers and elastomers. There is a growing focus on other materials, such as ceramics and metals. But it has, understandably, proven more difficult to imbue these materials with self-healing properties – particularly within metals with less atomic mobility. Although many types of material
technology fall under the ‘self- healing’ label, there is no single way for a material to heal itself. Instead, materials scientists develop the materials with specific mechanisms and techniques in place that determine how the healing takes place. There are two types of self-healing
process: autonomic, where the process
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