more results from tests

Quantao obtained in the last weeks some new interesting data from the tests.
The tests that he performed are the 4-point bending fatigue tests on beams. See one of the posts below for the set-up. What comes out of the tests is that the optimum healing temperature is 85 C. The tests are done on 'fresh' samples and samples that are artificially aged to an age of about 5 years. The healing performance and fatigue life extension ratio of the fresh and aged samples is almost equal. In the aged samples we see a slight decrease of 2%.

In the graph below the fatigue life extension ratio is plotted for tests were we only had natural healing (just rest periods) and were we had our induction healing combined with rest periods.

RTL4 news item

RTL4 news had yesterday an item on road damage on Dutch highways. Self Healing Asphalt with steelwool was proposed as a possible solution. In the video you see some shots from the project in our lab.
RTL4 is a commercial TV station, which means you first have to watch a commercial before the video starts. Sorry about that.....

Microscopy and Nano-Indentation

To measure the properties of our self healing asphalt we are doing a lot of different tests. These tests are performed on the virgin material, the aged material (after oxidation) and on the the damaged and subsequently healed material (after applying the induction healing).
We are applying also some new techniques, like microscopy on thin slices of 30 micrometer thick. See the image on the left.
Another technique we are using is nano-indentation on polished samples (image on right side). The indents are performed using a berkovich tip and a cooling stage at a temperature of -20 C with our Agilent G200 Nano Indenter.

Very Nice Self Healing Product

If you are interested in other self healing products you should have a look at the video below. This is realy incredible!. It would be nice if our asphalt would perform in a similar way......