Directly measuring interfacial shear strength between Polymethyl methacrylate and graphene nanoplatelets

Interfacial shear strength (IFSS) is the critical value for the stress transfer from low modulus materials to high modulus materials. However, due to the limitation of technology, direct and precise measurement of the IFSS is still challenging. In this work, we designed a sandwich structure by using two types of polymers, polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), with the graphene nanoplatelets (GNPs) sandwiched between them to directly measure the IFSS. Then, an in-plane load was applied to shear the structure. By changing the GNP density covering the interface, we could obtain a series of mean IFSS. After linear fitting, we obtained the average IFSS between PMMA and GNPs which was 0.35 MPa when the GNPs covered areas reached 100%. The value is very close to the reported results.