image: Angled view of vascular delivery of restorative materials to an open damage volume. Materials are delivered as two isolated fluid streams (dyed red and blue) through a vascular network. They wet the surface of the damage where they quickly gel and act as a scaffold for further deposition and eventual complete damage recovery of lost mass. The soft gel later transitions to a rigid, structural material, which completes the restoration process and returns the damaged material to its original function. This image is after full structural recovery. This image is immediately after starting delivery of fluid streams. This image relates to a paper that appeared in May 9, 2014, issue of Science, published by AAAS. The paper, by Scott White at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in Urbana, Ill., and colleagues was titled, "Restoration of Large Damage Volumes in Polymers." view more
Credit: [Credit: Brett Krull, University of Illinois]