Soutenance de thèse : Pablo GRIFFITHS

Magnetic induced healing of thermoplastic elastomer composites: multi-physics characterization

Doctorant : Pablo GRIFFITHS

Laboratoire INSA : MATEIS

Ecole doctorale : ED34 : Matériaux de Lyon

Rubber-based materials have recently suffered from a bad reputation for being one of the prominent materials in waste generation. However, because of their unique physical properties, their production remains of the utmost importance for applications in several industrial sectors. In this project, we directed our focus towards their reparation by designing strong and phase-changing rubbers. Unlike supramolecular materials, such elastomers possess high strength and toughness in service, and rely on abundant ingredients: a thermoplastic polyurethane (segmented copolymer), and a responsive nanofiller. We voluntarily abandon the self-healing paradigm, to move to the stimulus induced healing, being more realistic to produce truly healable materials endowed with high mechanical properties. In this framework, rubber healing consists in the dissociation of semi-crystalline “hard” segments encompassed within the soft matrix, enabling chain diffusion and the subsequent repairing of the material. While this phenomenon is most often controlled through the external temperature, we propose here to use magnetic induction heating as an alternative offering well-controlled, contactless and localized heating. Through this study, we seek to understand and optimize the healing capabilities of the samples processed in this work.