Finite element implementation and application of a cohesive zone damage-healing model for self-healing materials

•Modeling crack healing in self-healing materials under external stimuli.•Finite element implementation of a cohesive zone damage-healing model.•Experimental investigation of self-healing at the micron-scale.•Application of the cohesive zone damage-healing model to self-healing polymers.•Parametric study of the effect of various parameters in cohesive zone healing model.

Self-healing polymers have attracted intensive research interests during the last two decades for being high-potential sustainable materials for civil, military and aerospace applications. To better understand the self-healing phenomena, there is a need to model the time-and-temperature-dependent intrinsic self-healing mechanism at the micro scale and demonstrate crack initiation, propagation, closure and healing. This manuscript presents the numerical implementation of a phenomenological cohesive zone damage-healing model (CZDHM) for self-healing polymeric materials. The effects of temperature, pressure, resting time, instantaneous healing, history of healing and damage, and level of damage on the healing behavior of the material are incorporated in the model and investigated through parametric studies and numerical examples. Model predictions for healing experiments on a self-healing polymeric material are provided to show the capability of the CZDHM to capture self-healing. The proposed model promises a good starting basis for understanding the self-healing phenomena in self-healing materials.