Composites with Negative Refractive Index, Thermal, Self-Healing and Self-Sensing Functionality

摘要

Here, we outline recent achievements in creating structural composite materials with controlled electromagnetic, self-healing, thermal management, and self-sensing properties, i.e., a truly multifunctional material system. The electromagnetic response is tailored by incorporating within the material small amounts of suitably configured, periodically distributed, electric conductors to produce distributed electric inductance and capacitance. The self-healing is achieved via Diels-Alder reaction in a newly developed polymer that can covalently and exothermally rebond upon the application of rather low external temperatures and pressures. The embedded conductive wires are used as resistive elements to heat the material, as communication links between embedded sensors to detect internal damage, and as electrical conductors to tune the electromagnetic properties of the material system. The structurally-integrated embedded microelectronic sensors render the composite information-based, so that it can monitor and report on the local structural environment, on request or in real-time as necessary. In this paper we give an overview of the various components of our multifunctional concept, and present results on compression testing of the healable polymer at low and high strain rates.