Abstract:
Self-healing materials have the unique ability to autonomously repair minor and sometimes even major cracks and surface defects, due to a re-designed microstructure and composition. While the field of self healing (SH) materials started with flexible polymers, our research in the Netherlands has led to the development of a unique set of rigid yet self healing metals, ceramics and metallo-ceramics. In the case of SH ceramics, the healing generally requires the inclusion of dedicated healing particles. In the case of high temperature steels, the autonomous healing of creep damage at grain boundaries can be realised by new alloying concepts. In the case of metallo-ceramics, we defined the physical parameter set which defines which of the MAX and MAB phase materials can show autonomous crack healing at high temperatures and did the required tests to validate the predictions.
In my talk I will present the underlying concepts, show some examples of self healing at high temperature and some unique 3D tomographic images as well as present some of the physical and mechanical models to guide the experimental work.
The research to be presented will be continued in my new position as guest professor at Tsinghua university and I look forward to setting up many new collaborations.

Short Bio:
Sybrand van der Zwaag obtained an MSc in metallurgy at the Delft University of Technology and a PhD in Applied Physics from Cambridge University. After a postdoc position working on amorphous metals, he joined the Corporate Research lab of Akzo Nobel (the Netherlands) to work on lyotropic liquid crystalline polymers. In 1992 he was appointed full professor Microstructure Control in Metals at the Delft University of Technology. With his teams he developed new physical models for microstructure formation in metals and established a wide suite of new physical characterisation techniques to measure phenomena at the level of individual grains. In 2004 prof Van der Zwaag joined the faculty of Aerospace Engineering. and leads a group working towards novel materials for Aerospace Applications, focusing on metals, polymers, Smart materials and self healing materials. For 12 years he has been the scientific director of a national Dutch research program on Self Healing materials. In 2012 he was awarded the honoray title of "distinguished professor" from the TU Delft and received an ‘honorary doctorate’ from Mons University in 2017. He has published over 500 articles in scientific journals.