This is a workshop proposal on an emerging subject area in multi-functional materials. The particular focus is materials that have self-healing functionality for engineering.
The concept of self-healing in artificial materials systems is relatively new, arising from attempts to emulate one of the most beneficial properties of biological materials ? the ability to recover from inflicted damage ? and combine that with the many structural, chemical, optical and other properties obtainable through synthetic processing. This new field is focused on incorporating functionality that allows partial or full materials repair leading to prolonged lifetimes, reduced maintenance and overall greater autonomy from outside manipulation. An International Conference on Self-Healing Materials (ICSHM) will bring together scientists, engineers, and technology managers from across the world for an intensive series of research talks, poster presentations, and group discussions on advances in the field. This conference is scheduled for June 28-July 1, 2009 in Chicago, IL with 300 attendees expected. Special scientific symposia are being organized on self-healing cementitious materials, self-healing supramolecular polymers, mechanochemically active polymers, thermally activated/ thermoplastic self-healing, self-healing fibre-reinforced composite materials, self-healing metallic materials, self-healing with internal liquid healing agents, numerical analysis tools for self-healing, experimental techniques for assessment of self-healing, concepts and limitations in self-healing materials
