This work presents a generic cohesive zone framework to model the healing phenomenon in self-healing materials. The influence of heat and resting time on the healing behavior of the material is discussed. The nominal, healing, and effective configurations of continuum damage-healing mechanics are extended to represent cohesive zone configurations. The traction-separation laws and the evolution equations for healing and damage mechanisms are postulated based on the laws of thermodynamics and the principle of virtual power. The ability of the proposed model to explain self-healing will be demonstrated in future work.

Keywords: Cohesive zone, Self-healing materials, Constitutive modeling, Resting time, Crack closure effect.