Healing and self-healing polymers: composite networks revisited

A brief highlight of the structural features of self-healing polymers and of polymers healing under thermal, mechanical and chemical treatments is presented. A new healing mechanism is proposed for composite networks, based on the dissipation of constraints that hinder free fluctuation of network junctions. The model is supported by published experimental data for the stress strain behavior of composite networks and by current elaborations of the molecular theory of network elasticity. The elimination of defects and steric constraints among the chains is regarded as a structural self-healing process also occurring in the case of reversible, self-assembling networks