Low-carbon steel is a widely used structural metal that, when fractured, can be repaired with high temperature processes. There are many applications, however, that would benefit from a room-temperature repair process which maintains the steel microstructure and prevents nearby materials and electronics from overheating. This work seeks to enable effective room-temperature healing of steel by understanding how ion transport and electrolyte chemistry influence growth morphology and strength in fractured steel struts repaired with nickel electrodeposition. Experiments and simulations show that pulsed electroplating mitigates diffusion-limited growth to enable smooth and dense nickel deposits that have 4 higher adhesion to steel than nickel deposited by potentiostatic electroplating. By combining pulsed electroplating and electrolyte chemistry selection, fully fractured steel wires could be repaired to achieve up to 69% of their pristine wire strength. Finally, a simple geometric model highlights the advantageous energy and time requirements of electrochemical healing across length scales.

低碳钢是一种广泛使用的结构金属，断裂时可以通过高温工艺进行修复。然而，有许多应用会受益于室温修复过程，该过程可以保持钢的微观结构并防止附近的材料和电子设备过热。这项工作旨在通过了解离子传输和电解质化学如何影响用镍电沉积修复的断裂钢支柱的生长形态和强度，从而使钢在室温下有效愈合。实验和模拟表明，脉冲电镀减轻了扩散受限的生长，使镍沉积物变得光滑和致密，与通过恒电位电镀沉积的镍相比，它对钢的附着力高 4 倍。通过结合脉冲电镀和电解液化学选择，完全断裂的钢丝可以修复，以达到其原始钢丝强度的 69%。最后，一个简单的几何模型突出了电化学愈合跨长度尺度的有利能量和时间要求。