A higher-order nonlocal elasticity and strain gradient theory and its applications in wave propagation

In recent years there have been many papers that considered the effects of material length scales in the study of mechanics of solids at micro- and/or nano-scales. There are a number of approaches and, among them, one set of papers deals with Eringen's differential nonlocal model and another deals with the strain gradient theories. The modified couple stress theory, which also accounts for a material length scale, is a form of a strain gradient theory. The large body of literature that has come into existence in the last several years has created significant confusion among researchers about the length scales that these various theories contain. The present paper has the objective of establishing the fact that the length scales present in nonlocal elasticity and strain gradient theory describe two entirely different physical characteristics of materials and structures at nanoscale. By using two principle kernel functions, the paper further presents a theory with application examples which relates the classical nonlocal elasticity and strain gradient theory and it results in a higher-order nonlocal strain gradient theory. In this theory, a higher-order nonlocal strain gradient elasticity system which considers higher-order stress gradients and strain gradient nonlocality is proposed. It is based on the nonlocal effects of the strain field and first gradient strain field. This theory intends to generalize the classical nonlocal elasticity theory by introducing a higher-order strain tensor with nonlocality into the stored energy function. The theory is distinctive because the classical nonlocal stress theory does not include nonlocality of higher-order stresses while the common strain gradient theory only considers local higher-order strain gradients without nonlocal effects in a global sense. By establishing the constitutive relation within the thermodynamic framework, the governing equations of equilibrium and all boundary conditions are derived via the variational approach. Two additional kinds of parameters, the higher-order nonlocal parameters and the nonlocal gradient length coefficients are introduced to account for the size-dependent characteristics of nonlocal gradient materials at nanoscale. To illustrate its application values, the theory is applied for wave propagation in a nonlocal strain gradient system and the new dispersion relations derived are presented through examples for wave propagating in Euler–Bernoulli and Timoshenko nanobeams. The numerical results based on the new nonlocal strain gradient theory reveal some new findings with respect to lattice dynamics and wave propagation experiment that could not be matched by both the classical nonlocal stress model and the contemporary strain gradient theory. Thus, this higher-order nonlocal strain gradient model provides an explanation to some observations in the classical and nonlocal stress theories as well as the strain gradient theory in these aspects.     

A nonlocal strain gradient shell model incorporating surface effects for vibration analysis of functionally graded cylindrical nanoshells

In this paper, a novel size-dependent functionally graded(FG) cylindrical shell model is developed based on the nonlocal strain gradient theory in conjunction with the Gurtin-Murdoch surface elasticity theory. The new model containing a nonlocal parameter, a material length scale parameter, and several surface elastic constants can capture three typical types of size effects simultaneously, which are the nonlocal stress effect, the strain gradient effect, and the surface energy effects. With the help of Hamilton's principle and first-order shear deformation theory, the non-classical governing equations and related boundary conditions are derived. By using the proposed model, the free vibration problem of FG cylindrical nanoshells with material properties varying continuously through the thickness according to a power-law distribution is analytically solved, and the closed-form solutions for natural frequencies under various boundary conditions are obtained. After verifying the reliability of the proposed model and analytical method by comparing the degenerated results with those available in the literature, the influences of nonlocal parameter, material length scale parameter, power-law index, radius-to-thickness ratio, length-to-radius ratio, and surface effects on the vibration characteristic of functionally graded cylindrical nanoshells are examined in detail.     

INVESTIGATIONS ON THE MECHANICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF NANOBEAMS BASED ON THE NONLOCAL STRAIN GRADIENT THEORY1)

基于非局部应变梯度理论,建立了一种具有尺度效应的高阶剪切变形纳米梁的力学模型. 其中,考虑了应变场和一阶应变梯度场下的非局部效应. 采用哈密顿原理推导了纳米梁的控制方程和边界条件,并给出了简支边界条件下静弯曲、自由振动和线性屈曲问题的纳维级数解. 数值结果表明,非局部效应对梁的刚度产生软化作用,应变梯度效应对纳米梁的刚度产生硬化作用,梁的刚度整体呈现软化还是硬化效应依赖于非局部参数与材料特征尺度的比值. 梁的厚度与材料特征尺度越接近,非局部应变梯度理论与经典弹性理论所预测结果之间的差异越显著.     

Small scale effects on buckling and postbuckling behaviors of axially loaded FGM nanoshells based on nonlocal strain gradient elasticity theory

By means of a comprehensive theory of elasticity, namely, a nonlocal strain gradient continuum theory, size-dependent nonlinear axial instability characteristics of cylindrical nanoshells made of functionally graded material (FGM) are examined. To take small scale effects into consideration in a more accurate way, a nonlocal stress field parameter and an internal length scale parameter are incorporated simultaneously into an exponential shear deformation shell theory. The variation of material properties associated with FGM nanoshells is supposed along the shell thickness, and it is modeled based on the Mori-Tanaka homogenization scheme. With a boundary layer theory of shell buckling and a perturbation-based solving process, the nonlocal strain gradient load-deflection and load-shortening stability paths are derived explicitly. It is observed that the strain gradient size effect causes to the increases of both the critical axial buckling load and the width of snap-through phenomenon related to the postbuckling regime, while the nonlocal size dependency leads to the decreases of them. Moreover, the influence of the nonlocal type of small scale effect on the axial instability characteristics of FGM nanoshells is more than that of the strain gradient one.     

Over-nonlocal gradient enhanced plastic-damage model for concrete

Classical continuum models exhibit strong mesh dependency during softening. One method to regularize the problem is to introduce a length scale parameter via the nonlocal formulation. However, standard nonlocal enhancement (either by integral or gradient formulation) may serve only as a partial localization limiter for many material models. The “over-nonlocal” formulation, where the weight for the nonlocal value is greater than unity and the excesses compensated by assigning a negative weight to the local value, is able to fully regularize certain material models when standard nonlocal enhancement fails to do so. A plastic-damage model for concrete is formulated with this over-nonlocal enhancement via the gradient approach and the full regularizing capabilities demonstrated.     

Strain gradient crystal plasticity effects on flow localization

In metal grains one of the most important failure mechanisms involves shear band localization. As the band width is small, the deformations are affected by material length scales. To study localization in single grains a rate-dependent crystal plasticity formulation for finite strains is presented for metals described by the reformulated Fleck–Hutchinson strain gradient plasticity theory. The theory is implemented numerically within a finite element framework using slip rate increments and displacement increments as state variables. The formulation reduces to the classical crystal plasticity theory in the absence of strain gradients. The model is used to study the effect of an internal material length scale on the localization of plastic flow in shear bands in a single crystal under plane strain tension. It is shown that the mesh sensitivity is removed when using the nonlocal material model considered. Furthermore, it is illustrated how different hardening functions affect the formation of shear bands.     

A size-dependent Kirchhoff micro-plate model based on strain gradient elasticity theory

A size-dependent Kirchhoff micro-plate model is developed based on the strain gradient elasticity theory. The model contains three material length scale parameters, which may effectively capture the size effect. The model can also degenerate into the modified couple stress plate model or the classical plate model, if two or all of the material length scale parameters are taken to be zero. The static bending, instability and free vibration problems of a rectangular micro-plate with all edges simple supported are carried out to illustrate the applicability of the present size-dependent model. The results are compared with the reduced models. The present model can predict prominent size-dependent normalized stiffness, buckling load, and natural frequency with the reduction of structural size, especially when the plate thickness is on the same order of the material length scale parameter.     

Size-dependent sharp indentation—I: a closed-form expression of the indentation loading curve

In this paper, a closed-form expression of the size-dependent sharp indentation loading curve has been proposed based on dimensional analysis and the finite deformation Taylor-based nonlocal theory (TNT) of plasticity (Int. J. Plasticity 20 (2004) 831). The key issue is to link the results of FEM based on TNT plasticity with those obtained using conventional FEM by taking as the effective strain gradient, η, that presented in the work of Nix and Gao (J. Mech. Phys. Solids 46 (1998) 411), thus avoiding large-scale finite element computations using strain gradient plasticity theories. Two experiments carried out on 316 stainless-steel and pure titanium have been used to verify the effectiveness of the present analytical model; the results demonstrate that the present analytical expression of the size-dependent indentation loading curve corresponds very well to the experimental indentation loading curve. The empirical constant, α, in the Taylor model estimated from the experimental data has the correct order of magnitude. Also, the results presented in this part can be further applied to establish an analytical framework to extract the plastic properties of metallic materials with sharp indentation on a small scale where the size effect caused by geometrically necessary dislocations is significant. This will be discussed in detail in the second part of the paper.     

Nonlocal strain gradient beam model for nonlinear secondary resonance analysis of functionally graded porous micro/nano-beams under periodic hard excitations

Abstract

Functionally graded porous materials (FGPMs) have a wide range of applications as hollow members in biomedical and aeronautical engineering. In the FGPMs, the porosity is varied over the material volume because of the density change of pores. In the present work, an analytical treatment on the size-dependent nonlinear secondary resonance of FGPM micro/nano-beams subjected to periodic hard excitations is proposed in the simultaneous presence of the nonlocality and strain gradient size dependencies. Based upon the closed-cell Gaussian-random field scheme, the mechanical properties of the FGPM micro/nano-beams are extracted corresponding to the uniform and three different functionally graded patterns of the porosity dispersion. The nonlocal strain gradient theory of elasticity is applied to the classical beam theory to formulate a newly combined size-dependent beam model. Thereafter, an analytical solving methodology based on the multiple time-scales together with the Galerkin technique is adopted to achieve the nonlocal strain gradient frequency–response and amplitude–response curves associated with the subharmonic and superharmonic external excitations. For the subharmonic excitation, it is observed that the nonlocality causes to shift the junction point of the stable and unstable branches to the higher value of the detuning parameter. However, the strain gradient size dependency plays an opposite role. For the superharmonic one, it is illustrated that the nonlocal size effect makes an increment in the height of jump phenomenon and shifts the peak to higher value of the detuning parameter. However, the strain gradient small scale effect leads to decrease the height of the jump phenomenon and shifts the peak to lower value of the detuning parameter.     

Wave propagation analysis of porous functionally graded piezoelectric nanoplates with a visco-Pasternak foundation

This study investigates the size-dependent wave propagation behaviors under the thermoelectric loads of porous functionally graded piezoelectric(FGP) nanoplates deposited in a viscoelastic foundation. It is assumed that(i) the material parameters of the nanoplates obey a power-law variation in thickness and(ii) the uniform porosity exists in the nanoplates. The combined effects of viscoelasticity and shear deformation are considered by using the Kelvin-Voigt viscoelastic model and the refined hi...     

Gradient plasticity theory with a variable length scale parameter

The definition and magnitude of the intrinsic length scale are keys to the development of the gradient plasticity theory that incorporates size effects. However, a fixed value of the material length-scale is not always realistic and different problems could require different values. Moreover, a linear coupling between the local and nonlocal terms in the gradient plasticity theory is not always realistic and that different problems could require different couplings. This work addresses the proper modifications required for the full utility of the current gradient plasticity theories in solving the size effect problem. It is shown that the current gradient plasticity theories do not give sound interpretations of the size effects in micro-bending and micro-torsion tests if a definite and fixed length scale parameter is used. A generalized gradient plasticity model with a non-fixed length scale parameter is proposed based on dislocation mechanics. This model assesses the sensitivity of predictions to the way in which the local and nonlocal parts are coupled (or to the way in which the statically stored and geometrically necessary dislocations are coupled). In addition a physically-based relation for the length scale parameter as a function of the course of deformation and the material microstructural features is proposed. The proposed model gives good predictions of the size effect in micro-bending tests of thin films and micro-torsion tests of thin wires.     

Nonlinear wave propagation analysis in Timoshenko nano-beams considering nonlocal and strain gradient effects

This article is aimed to investigate the geometrically nonlinear wave propagation of nano-beams on the basis of the most comprehensive size-dependent elasticity theory. To this end, the integral model of nonlocal elasticity theory in the most general form without any simplification in conjunction with the modified strain gradient theory is implemented in the analysis. Also, the Timoshenko beam model is utilized in the presented nonlocal strain gradient elasticity theory. By Hamilton’s principle, the governing integro-partial differential equations of motion are derived. Employing numerical integration and an efficient method called as periodic grid technique, a semi-analytical approach is presented for the solution procedure. To detect the impacts of nonlocality and small scale effects on the nonlinear wave propagation characteristics of beams at nanoscale, adequate numerical examples and comparison studies are presented.     

Nonlocal implicit gradient-enhanced elasto-plasticity for the modelling of softening behaviour

An improved gradient-enhanced approach for softening elasto-plasticity is proposed, which in essence is fully nonlocal, i.e. an equivalent integral nonlocal format exists. The method utilises a nonlocal field variable in its constitutive framework, but in contrast to the integral models computes this nonlocal field with a gradient formulation. This formulation is considered ‘implicit’ in the sense that it strictly incorporates the higher-order gradients of the local field variable indirectly, unlike the common (explicit) gradient approaches. Furthermore, this implicit gradient formulation constitutes an additional partial differential equation (PDE) of the Helmholtz type, which is solved in a coupled fashion with the standard equilibrium condition. Such an approach is particularly advantageous since it combines the long-range interactions of an integral (nonlocal) model with the computational efficiency of a gradient formulation. Although these implicit gradient approaches have been successfully applied within damage mechanics, e.g. for quasi-brittle materials, the first attempts were deficient for plasticity. On the basis of a thorough comparison of the gradient-enhancements for plasticity and damage this paper rephrases the problem, which leads to a formulation that overcomes most reported problems. The two-dimensional finite element implementation for geometrically linear plain strain problems is presented. One- and two-dimensional numerical examples demonstrate the ability of this method to numerically model irreversible deformations, accompanied by the intense localisation of deformation and softening up to complete failure.     

Vibration analysis of piezoelectric sandwich nanobeam with flexoelectricity based on nonlocal strain gradient theory

A nonlocal strain gradient theory(NSGT) accounts for not only the nongradient nonlocal elastic stress but also the nonlocality of higher-order strain gradients,which makes it benefit from both hardening and softening effects in small-scale structures.In this study, based on the NSGT, an analytical model for the vibration behavior of a piezoelectric sandwich nanobeam is developed with consideration of flexoelectricity. The sandwich nanobeam consists of two piezoelectric sheets and a non-piezoelectric core. The governing equation of vibration of the sandwich beam is obtained by the Hamiltonian principle. The natural vibration frequency of the nanobeam is calculated for the simply supported(SS) boundary, the clamped-clamped(CC) boundary, the clamped-free(CF)boundary, and the clamped-simply supported(CS) boundary. The effects of geometric dimensions, length scale parameters, nonlocal parameters, piezoelectric constants, as well as the flexoelectric constants are discussed. The results demonstrate that both the flexoelectric and piezoelectric constants enhance the vibration frequency of the nanobeam.The nonlocal stress decreases the natural vibration frequency, while the strain gradient increases the natural vibration frequency. The natural vibration frequency based on the NSGT can be increased or decreased, depending on the value of the nonlocal parameter to length scale parameter ratio.     

Size-dependent axial buckling analysis of functionally graded circular cylindrical microshells based on the modified strain gradient elasticity theory

In this paper, a size-dependent first-order shear deformable shell model is developed based upon the modified strain gradient theory (MSGT) for the axial buckling analysis of functionally graded (FG) circular cylindrical microshells. It is assumed that the material properties of FG materials, which obey a simple power-law distribution, vary through the thickness direction. The principle of virtual work is utilized to formulate the governing equations and corresponding boundary conditions. Numerical results are presented for the axial buckling of FG circular cylindrical microshells subject to simply-supported end conditions and the effects of material length scale parameter, material property gradient index, length-to-radius ratio and circumferential mode number on the size-dependent critical buckling load are extensively studied. For comparison purpose, the critical buckling loads predicted by modified couple stress theory (MCST) and classical theory (CT) are also presented. Results show that the size effect plays an important role for lower values of dimensionless length scale parameter. Moreover, it is observed that the critical buckling loads obtained based on MSGT are greater than those obtained based on MCST and CT.     

Analysis of wave propagation in micro/nanobeam-like structures: A size-dependent model

By incorporating the strain gradient elasticity into the classical Bernoulli-Euler beam and Timoshenko beam models, the size-dependent characteristics of wave propagation in micro/nanobeams is studied. The formulations of dispersion relation are explicitly derived for both strain gradient beam models, and presented for different material length scale parameters (MLSPs). For both phenomenological sizedependent beam models, the angular frequency, phase velocity and group velocity increase with increasing wave number. However, the velocity ratios approach different values for different beam models, indicating an interesting behavior of the asymptotic velocity ratio. The present theory is also compared with the nonlocal continuum beam models.     

Formulation of strain gradient plasticity with interface energy in a consistent thermodynamic framework

In this work, the strain gradient formulation is used within the context of the thermodynamic principle, internal state variables, and thermodynamic and dissipation potentials. These in turn provide balance of momentum, boundary conditions, yield condition and flow rule, and free energy and dissipative energies. This new formulation contributes to the following important related issues: (i) the effects of interface energy that are incorporated into the formulation to address various boundary conditions, strengthening and formation of the boundary layers, (ii) nonlocal temperature effects that are crucial, for instance, for simulating the behavior of high speed machining for metallic materials using the strain gradient plasticity models, (iii) a new form of the nonlocal flow rule, (iv) physical bases of the length scale parameter and its identification using nano-indentation experiments and (v) a wide range of applications of the theory. Applications to thin films on thick substrates for various loading conditions and torsion of thin wires are investigated here along with the appropriate length scale effect on the behavior of these structures. Numerical issues of the theory are discussed and results are obtained using Matlab and Mathematica for the nonlinear ordinary differential equations (NODE) which constitute the boundary value problem.This study reveals that the micro-stress term has an important effect on the development of the boundary layers and hardening of the material at both hard and soft interface boundary conditions in thin films. The interface boundary conditions are described by the interfacial length scale and interfacial strength parameters. These parameters are important to control the size effect and hardening of the material. For more complex geometries the generalized form of the boundary value problem using the nonlocal finite element formulation is required to address the problems involved.     

Nonlocal and gradient rate plasticity

This paper deals with a formulation of nonlocal and gradient plasticity with internal variables. The constitutive model complies with local internal variables which govern kinematic hardening and isotropic softening and with a nonlocal corrective internal variable defined either as the sum between a new internal variable and its spatial weighted average or as the gradient of a measure of plastic strain. The rate constitutive problem is cast in the framework provided by the convex analysis and the potential theory for monotone multivalued operators which provide the suitable tools to perform a theoretical analysis of such nonlocal and gradient problems. The validity of the maximum dissipation theorem is assessed and constitutive variational formulations of the rate model are provided. The structural rate problem for an assigned load rate is then formulated. The related variational formulation in the complete set of state variable is contributed and the methodology to derive variational formulations, with different combinations of the state variables, is explicitly provided. In particular the generalization to the present nonlocal and gradient model of the principles of Prager–Hodge, Greenberg and Capurso–Maier is presented. Finally nonlocal variational formulations provided in the literature are derived as special cases of the proposed model.     

Analytical solutions for buckling of size-dependent Timoshenko beams

The inconsistences of the higher-order shear resultant expressed in terms of displacement(s) and the complete boundary value problems of structures modeled by the nonlocal strain gradient theory have not been well addressed. This paper develops a size-dependent Timoshenko beam model that considers both the nonlocal effect and strain gradient effect. The variationally consistent boundary conditions corresponding to the equations of motion of Timoshenko beams are reformulated with the aid of the weighted residual method. The complete boundary value problems of nonlocal strain gradient Timoshenko beams undergoing buckling are solved in closed forms. All the possible higher-order boundary conditions induced by the strain gradient are selectively suggested based on the fact that the buckling loads increase with the increasing aspect ratios of beams from the conventional mechanics point of view. Then, motivated by the expression for beams with simply-supported(SS) boundary conditions, some semiempirical formulae are obtained by curve fitting procedures.