An insight into advance self-healing composites

Abstract The purpose of the investigation is to review self-healing mechanisms and various advanced self-healing materials which are recently used for repairing composite materials. The manufacturing and characterization processes are studied in depth for self-healing carbon fiber reinforced composites, microcapsules, and supra-molecular elastomers. The composite structures fail due to internal cracks. These cracks are initiated due to continuous loading of structures. It is not possible to fill those cracks especially when the structures are at remote locations. Self-healing materials are designed and prepared to heal their cracks. The present review is about self-healing materials used for the fabrication of composites. It is expected that future applications are based on such advanced self-healing composite materials and thus it is needed to review advanced self-healing composite structures. A brief review of self-healing techniques and materials as well as applications are discussed in the present investigation. The efficient and effective manufacturing techniques are suggested through the article.