Traction–separation laws and stick–slip shear phenomenon of interfaces between cellulose nanocrystals

Cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) are one of nature's most abundant structural material building blocks and possess outstanding mechanical properties including a tensile modulus comparable to Kevlar. It remains challenging to upscale these properties in CNC neat films and nanocomposites due to the difficulty of characterizing interfacial bonding between CNCs that governs stress transfer under deformation. Here we present new analyses based on...