Nanomaterials are building blocks for a wide range of applications. They typically exhibit ultrahigh strength, which make them also promising candidates for elastic strain engineering. Here we demonstrate a potentially facile method to measure fracture strain and strain distribution of nanomaterials, with Ag nanowires as an example. Nanowires are placed on top of or embedded in a stretchable substrate (i.e., elastomer), either as-prepared (van der Waals interactions) or treated with UV ozone (chemical bonding), which is subjected to uniaxial tensile loading. Nonlinear and bilinear cohesive shear-lag models can well capture the interfacial shear stress transfer characteristics associated with the two types of interactions, respectively. For each type, interfacial parameters such as stiffness, shear strength, and/or fracture toughness are identified by fitting the measured average strains of the nanowires. The nanowires embedded in as-prepared and on top of treated substrate are found to fracture under large substrate strain. The fracture strain and strain distribution along the nanowires are predicted using the shear-lag models. This method can be readily applied to investigate fracture and elastic strain engineering of 1D nanomaterials (regardless of aligned or inclined with respect to the stretching direction) and 2D nanomaterials.

纳米材料是广泛应用的基础。它们通常表现出超高强度，这使其也很有希望成为弹性应变工程的候选者。在这里，我们以Ag纳米线为例，展示了一种测量纳米材料的断裂应变和应变分布的潜在简便方法。将纳米线放置在可拉伸基材（即弹性体）上或嵌入在可拉伸基材（即范德华相互作用）中，或用承受单轴拉伸载荷的UV臭氧（化学键合）处理。非线性和双线性内聚剪切滞后模型可以很好地捕获分别与两种类型的相互作用相关的界面剪切应力传递特征。对于每种类型，界面参数（例如刚度，剪切强度，通过拟合所测得的纳米线的平均应变来确定断裂韧性和/或断裂韧性​​。发现在制备的衬底中和在处理过的衬底顶部上嵌入的纳米线在大衬底应变下断裂。使用剪切滞后模型预测了沿纳米线的断裂应变和应变分布。此方法可以很容易地用于研究一维纳米材料（无论相对于拉伸方向对齐还是倾斜）和二维纳米材料的断裂和弹性应变工程。