VATIS UPDATE Article

Mechanical engineers from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM), the United States, have developed a new self-healing blade system that mimics the human circulatory system. The self-healing system, developed by UWM mechanical engineering professor Ryoichi Amano and his colleagues, has passed proof-of-concept tests, but still needs improvements before it can hit the market.

“The idea was to mold flat material samples, test them by bending, and see if the material could heal itself,” said Arun Kumar Koralagundi Matt, a UWM graduate student. Engineers first made samples with several layers of plain-weave fiberglass like that used in many wind-turbine blades. They mixed Grubbs’ catalyst, commonly used in synthetic organic chemistry, with an epoxy resin, and evenly dispersed it throughout the fiberglass.

The researchers then filled ultrathin borosilicate glass capillary tubes as long as a fingernail with a liquid “healing agent” that causes the epoxy to harden when the two come into contact in the presence of Grubb’s catalyst. They then laid the tubes lengthwise in different layers and sections of the fiberglass, depending on the test. The researchers then used a universal flexing machine and standard tensile tests to gauge the strain, stress, and other properties of the material.