Published in ScienceNOW, 21 June 2011
Whether it’s monitoring the integrity of buildings during earthquakes or airplane wings during flight, so-called strain sensors are getting more and more important for our safety. But what if a sensor itself is broken? A pair of engineers claims to have developed an answer to this problem: a new type of strain sensor that heals itself as soon as it is damaged.
Strain is the amount that an object is stretched, bent, or deformed. Too much strain and a structure fractures, which is bad news if that structure happens to be keeping a building upright or people flying through the air. Some critical structures have sensors to continually record strain placed at various points, all linked up to a central hub, so that technicians can monitor it and flag areas for repair before any serious damage is done. […]
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