GOALI: Self-healing Polymers for Improved Fatigue Performance

提高疲劳寿命的自修复聚合物GOALI合作项目旨在通过添加自修复功能来提高热固性聚合物的疲劳寿命。 热固性聚合物用于从复合结构到粘合剂接头到微电子封装的各种应用中。 由于这些聚合物具有低的失效应变，因此它们非常容易受到开裂形式的损坏。疲劳载荷是特别成问题的，导致小裂纹在结构内的深处开始，在那里检测是困难的并且修复几乎是不可能的。这些裂纹常常导致材料的灾难性失效。通过在聚合物基质中掺入微胶囊化的修复剂和催化化学触发剂来实现自修复功能。 将进行基础研究，以解决与疲劳损伤自愈相关的关键问题。 脆性聚合物中疲劳裂纹的热愈合能力有可能导致微电子和相关应用中更安全，更可靠的材料，并代表了开发具有极大延长寿命的材料系统的第一步。 这个GOALI项目将使合作努力，探索这种新技术的微电子应用。研究结果将为新的设计和生产实践提供基础科学依据，以提高疲劳性能。 拟议的工作将导致两名研究生和一名本科生研究助理的教育和培训。 此外，这个项目的几个概念将被纳入一个新的高级本科生/一年级研究生水平的课程，题为自主材料系统。

Self-Healing Polymers for Improved Fatigue Life This collaborative GOALI project seeks to improve the fatigue life of thermosetting polymers through the addition of self-healing functionality. Thermosetting polymers are used in a wide variety of applications ranging from composite structures to adhesive joints to microelectronic packaging. Because these polymers have low strain-to-failure, they are highly susceptible to damage in the form of cracking. Fatigue loading is particularly problematic, causing small cracks to initiate deep within the structure where detection is difficult and repair is virtually impossible. These cracks often lead to catastrophic failure of the material. Self-healing functionality is accomplished by incorporating a microencapsulated healing agent and a catalytic chemical trigger within a polymer matrix. Fundamental research will be undertaken to address critical issues relevant to self-healing of fatigue damage. The ability to autonomically heal fatigue cracks in brittle polymers has the potential to lead to safer, more reliable materials in microelectronics and related applications and represents the first step in developing materials systems that possess greatly extended lifetimes. This GOALI project will enable collaborative efforts to explore this new technology for microelectronic applications. Results will lead to fundamental scientific foundations on which new design and production practices are based for improved fatigue performance. The proposed work will result in the education and training for two graduate students and one undergraduate research assistant. Moreover, several concepts from this project will be incorporated into a new senior undergraduate/ first year graduate level course entitled Autonomic Materials Systems.