Full title of your research work
Multimaterial additive manufacturing of autonomous self-healing composites by thermal remending
Popularized title of your research work
Self-Healing 3D-Printed Materials That Repair Themselves
Short introduction
My name is Negar Aghigh and I am in the third year of my PhD in Mechanical Engineering, under the supervision of Professors Daniel Therriault and Jason Patrick from North Carolina State University. My thesis focuses on fabricating self-sensing and self-healing polymer composites with full autonomy using multimaterial 3D printing.”
What method did you use to explain your thesis in 3 minutes?
I focused on the key inspirations and concepts in my research, not technical material and manufacturing details. I tried to explain what is new in what I do and why my project matters. I avoided distractions such as material names and properties, and focused on concepts and goals.
How was your research topic inspired?
Self-healing materials are inspired from the human skin's ability to heal itself after damage, delivering repair resources (blood and cells), and rebuilding tissue at the wound site. Most self-healing approaches follow a similar trend: delivering a healing agent or rebuilding the material at the damaged site.
If you could dedicate your research to someone (past, present, or future), who would it be and why?
I would dedicate my research to the late Professor Scott R. White, a materials scientist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, widely recognized as a pioneer of self-healing materials. His work on self-healing polymers gained attention in the early 2000s (when I was born, and when my supervisor Prof. Daniel Therriault was a Ph.D. student in his research group), and our work today, 20 years after, is still inspired by his vision.
Three keywords to define your research work
3D printing, self-healing, autonomy
