From the start of civilisation mankind has tried to improve the performance and durability of the materials it uses. Over 20 centuries of dedicated materials development has led to today’s wide range of materials with exceptional mechanical and other properties. To make our materials as reliable and durable as possibly, materials scientists have developed a wide range of microstructures, which ultimately all are based on a common underlying paradigm “ the damage prevention concept’. Nature on the other hand seems to have ‘realised’ that the occurrence of damage is unavoidable and has developed many of its structural and functional materials on the basis of an alternative paradigm “the damage management concept”, leading to materials which derive their high reliability from their autonomous healing capability.

In this lecture the concept of self healing in engineering and functional materials will be described and several concepts to create self healing materials, such as polymers, composites, metals, ceramics, concrete, asphalts and functional materials such as thermal interface materials, low friction coatings, thermal barrier coatings and thermal interface materials will be presented. While self healing behaviour has now been realised in almost all material classes and the first commercial products are about to enter the market, many more routes remain to be developed.