Non-Catalytic Nanocomposite Based Self-Healing Material for Multifunctional Composite

NASA seeks new materials and systems for the mitigation of structural damage, and new concepts for the activation of healing mechanisms to improve structural durability and enhance safe operation of aerospace structural systems. Nanotrons Corporation proposes to develop advanced multifunctional carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) composites with built-in non-catalytic nanocompositebased self-healing microcapsules. The proposed self-healing approach integrates high performance functionalized carbon nanotube (CNT) nanofillers, reactive monomer solution, non-catalytic curing mechanism, and mass-production self-healing microcapsules. By uniformly dispersing these nanocomposite-based self-healing microcapsules throughout the CFRP composite matrix, self-healing multifunctional composite materials will be fabricated. The resulting materials should selectively repair the damaged areas at ambient conditions without catalysts. Nanotrons' proposed novel multifunctional CFRP composites could heal the damaged area over 90% of the original strength. Added benefits are that the addition of self-healing microcapsules will increase fracture toughness of the matrix polymer and the incorporated CNT nanofillers will improve electrical conductivity and EMI/RF shielding performance of the healed CFRP composites. These features are unattainable from existing systems. Nanotrons' proposed non-catalytic nanocomposite-based self-healing microcapsules embedded in multifunctional CFRP composites can be economically scaled up for manufacture. This Phase I program will demonstrate the feasibility of our proposed self-healing approach.

High-performance self-healing multifunctional composite material will help prevent catastrophic failure of structural components of military aircraft, rotorcraft, warships, vehicles, missile, rocket motor case, radomes, support structures, UAVs, buildings, and other construction. Our proposed self-healing multifunctional smart composites can be extended to structural composites of other commercial products including aircrafts, rotorcrafts, wind energy, constructions, building, and vehicles, VIP vehicles, ship, armor, and liquefied gas transport.

The proposed non-catalytic nanocomposite self-healing composite is expected to demonstrate enhanced autonomous durability and extended lifetime of structural composite materials of aeronautic and aerospace vehicles. This multifunctional smart composite will be applied to many aerospace structures, including aircraft, launch vehicles, space vehicles, permanent structures placed on the moon or Mars, and robotic devices that patrol these structures for SHM, and satellites. Also, their applications may extend to other structural composite materials of space, aerospace, and propellant tanks which require high durability, extending lifetime, and reducing maintenance cost.

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