Engineers Develop 'Self-Healing' Composites

If you're among those aviation old-schoolers having a hard time embracing carbon fiber, you may find this next bit of news even more difficult.

The Press Association reports aerospace engineers at Bristol University in England are working on a "self-healing" composite aircraft which can fix its own damage, even during a flight, and they predict it could be in use on commercial aircraft within four years.

In the new materials, if fibers break, the resin and hardener within them ooze out, enabling the composite to recover up to 90 percent of its original strength, allowing the plane to continue flying with its normal operational load. Future systems could actually mimic the human body, by circulating the fiber-healing agent in a liquid pumped throughout the plane in an integrated vascular system.

"This approach can deal with small-scale damage that's not obvious to the naked eye but which might lead to serious failures in structural integrity if it escapes attention," said Dr. Ian Bond, who is leading the project. "It is intended to complement rather than replace conventional inspection and maintenance routines."

Or, translating...if you make a gear-up landing, you're still on your own!

FMI: www.bristol.ac.uk/