Self-healing metal like human skin found

When a crack occurs in a metal structure, such as a bridge or engine, it is assumed that it will worsen over time. Therefore, it is recommended to replace the worn metal components after a certain period of time. However, a small piece of platinum observed from a new study shows that the process does not work as assumed. As a result of observations, it was revealed that platinum heals cracks on its own.

Self-healing metal found

The scientific community is developing and working on materials that can self-heal in most scenarios. But when it comes to metals, the tiny cracks created by time, known as fatigue damage, seemed unlikely to be removed. Because the cracks in metals are not expected to shrink, but on the contrary, they are expected to grow. Even the basic equations used to describe crack growth precluded the possibilities of any kind of healing process.

Brad Boyce, a scientist at Sandia National Laboratories, and his colleagues at Texas A&M University were stunned when they saw a nanoscale piece of platinum repair itself after it broke. In the experiments, the researchers used a technique that pulled the ends of small pieces of metal about 200 times per second. While this technique caused breaks in the platinum, something unexpected happened around 40 minutes into the experiment: A small portion of the damage healed on its own, without any intervention from the researchers, just like human skin heals after a cut.

“It was absolutely stunning to watch this first hand,” said Boyce, lead author of the paper describing the findings. “The researchers want to delve deeper into this repair mechanism to shed light on the causes of the healing process. This could fundamentally change the way of thinking about designing for stress fractures caused by wear and tear in metal-based structures. Unraveling the mechanism could also lead to its application to different metals. On the other hand, the researchers say they don’t know how the process works or how it would work in real-world conditions, given the scale of their work.”