When the damage occurs in conventional materials, it requires to human intervention to identify, repair or replace parts of the system; while the automatic detection of damage and its improve is one of the unique properties of biological systems such as blood clots, heal a broken bone, and repair of a damaged tissue. In this regard and in imitation of the unique features of the nature and inspired by biological processes, researchers have attempted to develop self-healing smart materials. Smart materials are automatically able to diagnose and treat injury which has the potential to reduce costs in addition to reducing the amount of human interaction, damage minimizing and reducing the need for replacement of the parts in the system. Unlike the conventional self-healing materials that are contain microspheres or tubes containing a healing agent and heal the damage through the chemical means and would not be expected to heal following such a macroscopic and energetic damage event as ballistic puncture or fracture; self healing ionomers are able to heal the damage in a short period of time independently that cause minimum coast. In fact, the Ionomer self-healing ability is an inherent material response rather than by design, suggesting a very different healing mechanism. It occurs automatically and instantaneously without manual intervention—indeed it is an autonomic self-healing process. This paper provides a review of the work on self-healing ionomers, the mechanism behind this ability, and the methods used to uncover this unique response, including ballistic and other techniques.
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