Title: POLYSULFIDE ELASTOMERS AS SELF-HEALING SEALANTS FOR TRANSPORTATION INFRASTRUCTURE

Authors: Sandra Milev, Christopher J. Kloxin, Jovan Tatar

DOI: 10.33599/nasampe/s.23.0018

Abstract: As transportation agencies largely neglect joint sealant maintenance in concrete pavements, water infiltration into the deteriorated joint and subgrade often results in base softening, erosion, and faulting, posing a significant financial burden on taxpayers. To improve the durability performance of concrete pavement sealants, an elastomer with self-healing ability was designed by incorporating dynamic disulfide bonds. The sealant was prepared using commercially available liquid polysulfides and epoxy resin. Sealant performance and self-healing were optimized by changing the type of polysulfide oligomers, the stoichiometric ratio of epoxy to thiol, and catalyst content. Preliminary mechanical tests under ambient conditions show that reducing the stoichiometric ratio from 1 to 0.9 and reducing the cross-linking density increased the ultimate elongation from 386% to 688%. The addition of 1% of the catalyst increased self-healing efficiency (measured as a percentage of recovered elongation) by 56%. Although the primary focus of this work was on transportation infrastructure applications, the developed material design concepts can be universally applied to self-healing sealants for applications in the aircraft and automotive industry.

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Conference: SAMPE 2023

Publication Date: 2023/04/17

SKU: TP23-0000000018

Pages: 12

Price: $24.00