Repairtecture

Repairtecture’s vision is to provide innovative simulation, design and material concepts for a circular economy of polymer-based products and composite structures which retain their functionality, performance and appeal over an extended lifetime. The unprecedented combination of stimuli-triggered molecular functions with reliable properties and modular architectures is expected to bridge environmental sustainability and economic efficiency with advanced repair/remanufacturing processes for future polymer-based products.

• Priv.-Doz. Dr. Sandra Schlögl
• Scientific Director
   

• Polymer Competence Center Leoben GmbH
• Czech Academy of Sciences
• Graz University of Technology
• Johannes Kepler Universität Linz
• Leibniz-Institut für Verbundwerkstoffe
• Maastricht University
• Montanuniversität Leoben
• University of New South Wales
• Andritz AG
• A Raymond SCS 

The COMET Module Repairtecture focuses on innovative simulation, material, design and bonding concepts for a circular economy of polymer-based products and composite structures, which retain their functionality, performance and appeal over an extended life-time. From a thermodynamic and energy viewpoint, repair concepts are an important driver for the envisaged European’s climate neutrality until 2050, as they require a low input of energy and raw materials. Although repair is the ‘closed loop design’ with the highest environmental benefit for managing long-term fates of polymer-based products, recycling is far more commonly applied in practice. Along with a lack of product lifetime liability, the breakthrough of repair concepts as preferred waste avoidance strategy (for high-performance products) is mainly limited by high costs and a loss of the product’s functionality and appeal due to fashion reasons. 

• Developing new simulation tools for predicting the need for repair
• Synthesis of repairable dynamic polymer networks with fast bond exchange rates and low creep
• High-performance adhesives with externally triggered debonding properties
• Establishing modular and reliable eco-design concepts for refurbishable and repairable polymer-based components
• Developing new (mechanical and chemical) joining concepts for easy-to-repair products
• Consideration of life cycle aspects of repair processes in contrast to recycling and currently applied waste management routes

By following an ambitious and highly interdisciplinary research program, Repairtecture aims at the development of new crosslinked polymers (e.g., thermosets) which have the ability (i) to repair damages on a molecular level, (ii) reversibly adapt their viscoelastic properties (for repairing macroscopic damages) and (iii) change their adhesion performance on demand in order to repair and refurbish bonded multi-material structures. The strategies pursued within Repairtecture lay the foundation for (i) innovative mounting and straight-forward disassembling strategies, (ii) new modular design guidelines, (iii) convenient repair/remanufacture processes for structural and functional polymer-based products and (iv) reduced costs. With these out-of-the-box approaches, Repairtecture addresses the whole value chain and life cycle of polymer products applied in established and/or future industrial fields.

• New repair concepts for highly crosslinked polymers
• Local and reversible self-folding of crosslinked polymers