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Nano reinforcements have aroused considerable attentions from both material science and engineering application points of view because of their extraordinary mechanical properties and electronic structures. The use of nanoclays, carbon nanotube networks in surface coatings and composite interphases is leading to rapidly growing unique areas of nanotechnology, especially in integrating mechanical and electrical functionality on the nanoscale. A more comprehensive understanding of the role of nano reinforcements on material surface defect repairing and the realization of functional composite interphase is a significant research focus. Most solid materials have surface defects. In brittle materials such as glass and ceramics, a fundamental mechanism of failure is the spreading of surface defects. Surface defects of brittle materials cause actual tensile strength much lower than the ultimate theoretical strength. The surface defects normally on the nanoscale providing extra stress at the tip of the cracks can lead to stress-corrosion cracking at low stress level. Generally, polymer coatings are always applied to various fibres to protect them from mechanical damage during handling. Such coatings also act as a diffusion barrier to moisture reaching the fibre surface from the surrounding environment. Healing nanoscale surface flaws and enhance materials’ lifetime by coating, therefore, are important for many traditional materials for wide use in aggressive environments. The mechanical ‘healing’ effect was viewed as a disappearance of the severe surface flaws because of an increase of the crack tip radius, the flaw filled by coatings being either elliptical than sharp. Reinforcement with nanomaterials in coatings is a topic of significant current interest. The molecular dynamics simulations show that the stress concentration at the notch tip is significantly reduced due to the presence of the nanoparticles (Tyagi et al., 2004). These results point to a simple means of fabricating systems that can self-heal, where nanoparticles dispersed in a polymer matrix can migrate to a crack generated at the interface between the polymer and a glassy layer (Gupta et al., 2006). Fundamentally, optimised mechanical structure and nanostructured surface are motivated by the grace and efficiency of natural materials, in a biomimetics approach. It is evolved in these materials, as shown in Fig. 1 (left), that multiscale structures (i.e. bones) and skin coverings with flexible multilayer of overlapping tough scales (vertebrates, i.e. fishes) provide a protective layer against physical/chemical attack. The nanometer size of mineral particles, composed of insoluble protein keratin and minerals, ensures optimum strength and maximum tolerance of flaws (Gao et al., 2003). As the

Nano Reinforcements in Surface Coatings and Composite Interphases