Self-Healing in Ceramics Based Nanocomposite

Self-healing is the most valuable phenomenon to overcome the integrity decreases which are caused by the damages in service. Thus, self-healing should be automatically occurred as soon as the damages occur, and the healed zone should have high integrity before damaging. In the case the structural ceramics, the severest flaw is surface cracks which are possible to be introduced by crash, fatigue, thermal shock and corrosion during service. Thus, the self-healing of surface cracks in the structural ceramics is an important issue to ensure the structural integrity of the ceramic components. The present author and coworkers succeeded to endow the excellent self-healing ability to structural ceramics by using the high temperature oxidation of the dispersed silicon carbide particle. In the present paper, the healing mechanism, behavior and advantages will be introduced. Moreover, our latest self-healing ceramics will be also reported.