A thermodynamic consistent damage and healing model for self healing materials

Thermodynamics of the damage and the healing processes for viscoplastic materials is discussed in detail and constitutive equations for coupled inelastic-damage-healing processes are proposed in a thermodynamic consistent framework. Small deformation state is utilized and the kinematic and the isotropic hardening effects for the damage and healing processes are introduced into the governing equations. Two new yield surfaces for the damage and healing processes are proposed that take into account the isotropic hardening effect. The computational aspect for solving the coupled elasto-plastic-damage-healing problem is investigated, and the mechanical behavior of the proposed polymeric based self healing system is obtained. Uniaxial compression tests are implemented on a shape memory polymer based self healing system and the damage and the healing are captured by measurement of the changes in the modulus of elasticity. It is concluded that the proposed constitutive equations can model the damage and healing effectively and the mechanical behavior of a shape memory polymer based self healing system can be precisely modeled using this formulation. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.