Science Daily  July 19, 2023 In traditional metallurgical design for fatigue resistance in metals, microstructures are developed to either arrest or slow the progression of cracks. Crack growth is assumed to be irreversible. By contrast, in other material classes, there is a compelling alternative based on latent healing mechanisms and damage. A team of researchers in the US (Sandia National Laboratory, Texas A&M University, University of Tennessee) has shown that fatigue cracks in pure metals can undergo intrinsic self-healing. They directly observed the early progression of nanoscale fatigue cracks, and as expected, the cracks advanced, deflected and arrested at local […]