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from the things-similar-to-things-vampires-drink dept.
A new plastic that "heals itself" has been designed, meaning your cracked phone screen or broken tennis racquet could one day mend its own wounds. The polymer automatically patches holes 3 cm wide, 100 times bigger than before. Inspired by the human blood system, it contains a network of capillaries that deliver healing chemicals to damaged areas. The new material, created by engineers at the University of Illinois, is described in Science journal. For decades scientists have dreamed of structures that heal like a plant or an animal heals a wound. Cracks in water pipes and car bonnets would seal up. Satellites could repair their own damage. Broken electronic chips in laptops and mobile phones would spontaneously sort out their own problems.
Link to the abstract, the full journal requires a login.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by c0lo on Saturday May 10 2014, @01:28AM
Space... a strange place... temperature may be quite low [ucdavis.edu] and it's full of a vacuum ready to suck in any pressurized liquid that ventures outside.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by Tork on Saturday May 10 2014, @04:49AM
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 10 2014, @02:03AM
The things that occurred to me are:
1) How long does it take?
FTFA:
"After failure, the load was removed and the crack allowed to heal at room temperature with no manual intervention. Fracture tests were repeated after 48 hours to quantify the amount of healing and in all of the healed samples, the crack propagated along the original (virgin) crack plane."
No other mention of time.
2) How does a fluid leaking through the void affect the process?
"The ROMP reaction invokes the use of a transition metal catalyst (Grubbs' catalyst) that shows high metathesis activity while being tolerant of a wide range of functional groups as well as oxygen and water"
Hmmm. So, how much pressure can the water have before this doesn't work?
-- gewg_
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 10 2014, @02:13AM
"we filled impacted regions that exceed 35 mm in diameter within 20 min and restored mechanical function within 3 hours. After restoration of impact damage, 62% of the total absorbed energy was recovered in comparison with that in initial impact tests."
-- gewg_