Smart Adhesive Joints: An Overview of Recent Developments

TLDR

Adhesive bonding is a viable technique for joining a wide range of materials, yet increasing lifetime, reducing costs, and improving safety are highly demanded, prompting interest in new technologies that enable easy recycling, healing, or self‑healing of bonded structures. The paper reviews current developments in smart adhesive technology and introduces early findings on self‑healing materials, thermally expandable particles, and nanoparticles. It discusses how these materials are incorporated into adhesives to potentially increase joint reliability. Keywords include nanoparticles, recycle, repair, self‑healing materials, smart adhesive joints, and thermally expandable particles; acknowledgments note support from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) grant SFRH/BPD/75920/2011.

Abstract

Abstract Adhesive bonding is a viable technique for joining a wide range of materials. However, increasing the lifetime, reducing the costs, and improving the safety of structures are highly demanded nowadays. Hence, the development of new technologies and processes for easy recycle, heal, or self-heal of bonded structures are becoming of great interest for the industry. This paper provides an overview of the current developments in the use of "smart" adhesive technology and introduces the reader to early findings on the use of self-healing materials, thermally expandable particles, and nanoparticles, among others, in adhesives and their potential to increase the reliability of adhesive joints. KEYWORDS: NanoparticlesRecycleRepairSelf-healing materialsSmart adhesive jointsThermally expandable particles ACKNOWLEDGMENTS M. D. Banea would like to thank the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) for supporting the work presented here, through the individual grant SFRH/BPD/75920/2011.