Microscale defects in materials damage the originally designed microstructure during their use, degrading their mechanical properties/life expectancy. Therefore, various methods for damage repair in materials have been proposed based on the concept of self-healing. However, self-healing for bulk metallic materials is still a challenge due to their strong atomic bonding. Here, we introduce a sub-second electric pulsing which can enhance the kinetics of microstructural changes to infinitely reset the damaged microstructure of metallic materials as a non-autonomous self-healing method. The principle of microstructure resetting is explained based on three categories of resetting cores: phase transformation, dislocation recovery, and recrystallization. Microstructure resetting assisted infinite reuse is successfully realized using 301L/316L stainless steels and super-elastic NiTi alloy, which are applicable materials of the resetting core. This is a new concept combining extreme simplicity, rapidness, and infinite repetition, which cannot be achieved by conventional methods.

材料中的微小缺陷会在使用过程中损坏最初设计的微结构，从而降低其机械性能/预期寿命。因此，基于自修复的概念，已经提出了各种材料中的损伤修复方法。然而，由于大块金属材料的强原子键合，其自愈仍然是一个挑战。在这里，我们介绍了一种亚秒级的电脉冲，它可以作为非自主的自愈方法来增强微结构变化的动力学，从而无限期地重置金属材料的受损微结构。微观结构重置的原理是基于重置核的三类来解释的：相变，位错恢复和重结晶。使用301L / 316L不锈钢和超弹性NiTi合金成功地实现了微结构重置辅助的无限重复使用，它们是重置核心的适用材料。这是一个结合了极端简单性，快速性和无限重复性的新概念，这是常规方法无法实现的。