State-of-the-art review on self-healing in mortar, concrete, and composites

The most desirable features of concrete structures are prolonged durability and serviceability. Though, cement-based structures exhibit outstanding mechanical and durability properties, cracks are inexorably causing damage to the concrete structures. The time, labour, materials, and money invested in the restoration, repair, and rehabilitation of the structures are huge. The incessant solution to prevent concrete structures from cracks is through self-healing which will be an integral part available in the concrete structures. This review article explores the mechanism, methods, and materials employed in the self-healing of cement and cementitious composites. Based on 500 globally published research articles on self-healing of mortar, concrete, and composites, this article also provides a comprehensive overview of experimental studies, different strategies, and the effectiveness of self-healing in cement mortar, concrete, and composites. It can be observed from the literature that self-healing on cementitious mortar, concrete, and composites depends primarily on the choice of materials, exposure conditions, age, and intrinsic or extrinsic properties of self-healing agents.