Buckling and postbuckling of size-dependent cracked microbeams based on a modified couple stress theory

The elastic buckling analysis and the static postbuckling response of the Euler–Bernoulli microbeams containing an open edge crack are studied based on a modified couple stress theory. The cracked section is modeled by a massless elastic rotational spring. This model contains a material length scale parameter and can capture the size effect. The von Kármán nonlinearity is applied to display the postbuckling behavior. Analytical solutions of a critical buckling load and the postbuckling response are presented for simply supported cracked microbeams. This parametric study indicates the effects of the crack location, crack severity, and length scale parameter on the buckling and postbuckling behaviors of cracked microbeams.     

Dynamic analysis and design of electrically actuated viscoelastic microbeams considering the scale effect

Viscoelastic phenomena widely exist in MEMS materials, which may have certain effects on quasi-static behaviors and transition mechanism of nonlinear jumping phenomena. The static and dynamic behaviors of a doubly clamped viscoelastic microbeam actuated by one sided electrode are investigated in detail, based on a modified couple stress theory. The governing equation of motion is introduced here, which is essentially nonlinear due to its midplane stretching effect and electrostatic force. Through quasi-static analysis, the equilibrium position, pull-in voltage and pull-in location of the system are obtained with differential quadrature method and finite element method. The equivalent geometric nonlinear parameter is presented to explain the influence of the scale effect on the pull-in location. Different from elastic material, there are two kinds of pull-in voltages called as instantaneous pull-in voltage and the durable pull-in voltage in viscoelastic system. Then, Galerkin discretization and the method of multiple scales are applied to determine the response and stability of the system for small vibration amplitude. A new perturbation method to deal with viscoelastic term is presented. Theoretical expressions about the parameter spaces of linear-like vibration, hardening-type vibration and softening-type vibration are then deduced. The influence of viscoelasticity and scale effect on nonlinear dynamic behavior is studied. Results show that the viscoelasticity can reduce the effective elastic modulus and make the system tend to softening-type vibration; the scale effect can increase effective elastic modulus and make the system tend to hardening-type vibration. And most of all, simulation results of case studies are used to realize parameter optimization. Then parameter conditions of linear-like vibration, which is desired for many applications, are obtained. In this paper, the results of multi-physical field coupling simulation are used to verify the theoretical analysis.     

A new Kirchhoff plate model based on a modified couple stress theory

In this paper a new Kirchhoff plate model is developed for the static analysis of isotropic micro-plates with arbitrary shape based on a modified couple stress theory containing only one material length scale parameter which can capture the size effect. The proposed model is capable of handling plates with complex geometries and boundary conditions. From a detailed variational procedure the governing equilibrium equation of the micro-plate and the most general boundary conditions are derived, in terms of the deflection, using the principle of minimum potential energy. The resulting boundary value problem is of the fourth order (instead of existing gradient theories which is of the sixth order) and it is solved using the Method of Fundamental Solutions (MFS) which is a boundary-type meshless method. Several plates of various shapes, aspect and Poisson’s ratios are analyzed to illustrate the applicability of the developed micro-plate model and to reveal the differences between the current model and the classical plate model. Moreover, useful conclusions are drawn from the micron-scale response of this new Kirchhoff plate model.     

A microstructure-dependent Timoshenko beam model based on a modified couple stress theory

A microstructure-dependent Timoshenko beam model is developed using a variational formulation. It is based on a modified couple stress theory and Hamilton's principle. The new model contains a material length scale parameter and can capture the size effect, unlike the classical Timoshenko beam theory. Moreover, both bending and axial deformations are considered, and the Poisson effect is incorporated in the current model, which differ from existing Timoshenko beam models. The newly developed non-classical beam model recovers the classical Timoshenko beam model when the material length scale parameter and Poisson's ratio are both set to be zero. In addition, the current Timoshenko beam model reduces to a microstructure-dependent Bernoulli-Euler beam model when the normality assumption is reinstated, which also incorporates the Poisson effect and can be further reduced to the classical Bernoulli-Euler beam model. To illustrate the new Timoshenko beam model, the static bending and free vibration problems of a simply supported beam are solved by directly applying the formulas derived. The numerical results for the static bending problem reveal that both the deflection and rotation of the simply supported beam predicted by the new model are smaller than those predicted by the classical Timoshenko beam model. Also, the differences in both the deflection and rotation predicted by the two models are very large when the beam thickness is small, but they are diminishing with the increase of the beam thickness. Similar trends are observed for the free vibration problem, where it is shown that the natural frequency predicted by the new model is higher than that by the classical model, with the difference between them being significantly large only for very thin beams. These predicted trends of the size effect in beam bending at the micron scale agree with those observed experimentally. Finally, the Poisson effect on the beam deflection, rotation and natural frequency is found to be significant, which is especially true when the classical Timoshenko beam model is used. This indicates that the assumption of Poisson's effect being negligible, which is commonly used in existing beam theories, is inadequate and should be individually verified or simply abandoned in order to obtain more accurate and reliable results.     

Nonlinear dynamic analysis of electrically actuated viscoelastic bistable microbeam system

Nonlinear Dynamics - Viscoelastic phenomena widely exist in MEMS materials, which may have certain effects on transition mechanism of nonlinear jumping phenomena and transient chaotic behaviors....     

基于新修正偶应力理论的Mindlin层合板稳定性分析

基于新的各向异性修正偶应力理论提出一个Mindlin复合材料层合板稳定性模型。该理论包含纤维和基体两个不同的材料长度尺度参数。不同于忽略横向剪切应力的修正偶应力Kirchhoff薄板理论,Mindlin层合板考虑横向剪切变形引入两个转角变量。进一步建立了只含一个材料细观参数的偶应力Mindlin层合板工程理论的稳定性模型。计算了正交铺设简支方板Mindlin层合板的临界载荷。计算结果表明该模型可以用于分析细观尺度层合板稳定性的尺寸效应。     

Thermoelastic vibrations of a Timoshenko microbeam based on the modified couple stress theory

Nonlinear Dynamics - The dependence of the quality factor of nonlinear microbeam resonators under thermoelastic damping for Timoshenko beams with regard to geometric nonlinearity has been studied....     

Sensitivity analysis of pull-in voltage for RF MEMS switch based on modified couple stress theory

An approximate analytical model for calculating the pull-in voltage of a stepped cantilever-type radio frequency(RF) micro electro-mechanical system(MEMS) switch is developed based on the Euler-Bernoulli beam and a modified couple stress theory, and is validated by comparison with the finite element results. The sensitivity functions of the pull-in voltage to the designed parameters are derived based on the proposed model. The sensitivity investigation shows that the pull-in voltage sensitivities increase/decrease nonlinearly with the increases in the designed parameters. For the stepped cantilever beam, there exists a nonzero optimal dimensionless length ratio, where the pull-in voltage is insensitive. The optimal value of the dimensionless length ratio only depends on the dimensionless width ratio, and can be obtained by solving a nonlinear equation. The determination of the designed parameters is discussed, and some recommendations are made for the RF MEMS switch optimization.     

基于修正偶应力和高阶剪切变形理论的变截面微梁的自由振动

基于修正偶应力和高阶剪切理论建立了仅含有一个尺度参数的Reddy变截面微梁的自由振动模型,研究了变截面微梁自由振动问题的尺度效应和横向剪切变形对自振频率计算的影响。基于哈密顿原理推导了动力学方程与边界条件,并采用微分求积法求解了各种边界条件下的自振频率。算例结果表明,基于偶应力理论预测的变截面微梁的自振频率均大于经典梁理论的预测结果,即捕捉到了尺度效应。另外,梁的几何尺寸与尺度参数越接近,尺度效应就越明显,而梁的长细比越小,横向剪切变形对自振频率的影响就越明显。     

Size-dependent free vibration analysis of composite laminated Timoshenko beam based on new modified couple stress theory

A micro-scale free vibration analysis of composite laminated Timoshenko beam (CLTB) model is developed based on the new modified couple stress theory. In this theory, a new anisotropic constitutive relation is defined for modeling the CLTB. This theory uses rotation–displacement as dependent variable and contains only one material length scale parameter. Hamilton’s principle is employed to derive the governing equations of motion and boundary conditions. This new model can be reduced to composite laminated Bernoulli–Euler beam model of the couple stress theory. An example analysis of free vibration of the cross-ply simply supported CLTB model is adopted, and an explicit expression of analysis solution is given. Additionally, the numerical results show that the present beam models can capture the scale effects of the natural frequencies of the micro-structure.     

Nonlinear bending of size-dependent circular microplates based on the modified couple stress theory

The present study proposes a nonclassical Kirchhoff plate model for the axisymmetrically nonlinear bending analysis of circular microplates under uniformly distributed transverse loads. The governing differential equations are derived from the principle of minimum total potential energy based on the modified couple stress theory and von Kármán geometrically nonlinear theory in terms of the deflection and radial membrane force, with only one material length scale parameter to capture the size-dependent behavior. The governing equations are firstly discretized to a set of nonlinear algebraic equations by the orthogonal collocation point method, and then solved numerically by the Newton–Raphson iteration method to obtain the size-dependent solutions for deflections and radial membrane forces. The influences of length scale parameter on the bending behaviors of microplates are discussed in detail for immovable clamped and simply supported edge conditions. The numerical results indicate that the microplates modeled by the modified couple stress theory causes more stiffness than modeled by the classical continuum plate theory, such that for plates with small thickness to material length scale ratio, the difference between the results of these two theories is significantly large, but it becomes decreasing or even diminishing with increasing thickness to length scale ratio.     

A size-dependent composite laminated skew plate model based on a new modified couple stress theory

In this study, a size-dependent composite laminated skew Mindlin plate model is proposed based on a new modified couple stress theory. This plate model can be viewed as a simplified couple stress theory in engineering mechanics. Governing equations and related boundary conditions are derived based on the principle of minimum potential energy. The Rayleigh–Ritz method is employed to obtain the numerical solutions of the center deflections of simply supported plates with different ply orientations. Numerical results show that the normalized center deflections obtained by the proposed model are always smaller than those obtained by the classical one, i.e. the present model can capture the scale effects of microstructures. Moreover, a phenomenon reveals that the ply orientation would make a significant influence on the magnitude of scale effects of composite laminated plates at micro scale. Additionally, the present model of thick skew plate can be degenerated to the model of Kirchhoff plate based on the modified couple stress theory by adopting the assumptions in Bernoulli–Euler beam and material isotropy.     

A new microstructure-dependent Saint–Venant torsion model based on a modified couple stress theory

In this paper a new modified couple stress model is developed for the Saint–Venant torsion problem of micro-bars of arbitrary cross-section. The proposed model is derived from a modified couple stress theory and has only one material length scale parameter. Using a variational procedure the governing differential equation and the associated boundary conditions are derived in terms of the warping function. This is a fourth order partial differential equation representing the analog of a Kirchhoff plate having the shape of the cross-section and subjected to a uniform tensile membrane force with mixed Neumann boundary conditions. Since the fundamental solution of the equation is known, the problem could be solved using the direct Boundary Element Method (BEM). In this investigation, however, the Analog Equation Method (AEM) solution is applied and the results are cross checked using the Method of Fundamental Solutions (MFS). Several micro-bars of various cross-sections are analyzed to illustrate the applicability of the developed model and to reveal the differences between the current model and an existing one which, however, contains two additional constants related to the microstructure. Moreover, useful conclusions are drawn from the micron-scale torsional response of micro-bars, giving thus a better insight in the gradient elasticity approach of the deformable bodies.     

Nonlinearity analysis of piezoelectric micromachined ultrasonic transducers based on couple stress theory

This paper studies the static deformation behavior of a piezoelectric micromachined ultrasonic transducer (PMUT) actuated by a strong external electric field. The transducer membrane consists of a piezoelectric layer, a passive layer and two electrode layers. The nonlinearities of the piezoelectric layer caused by electrostriction under a strong electric field are analyzed. Because the thickness of the transducer membrane is on the microscale, the size dependence of the deformation behavior is evaluated using the couple stress theory. The results show that the optimal ratio of the top electrode diameter and the membrane diameter is around 0.674. It is also found that this optimal value does not depend on any other parameters if the thicknesses of the two electrodes are negligible compared with those of the piezoelectric and passive layers. In addition, the nonlinearities of the piezoelectric layer will become stronger along with the increase of the electric field, which means that softening of the membrane stiffness occurs when a strong external electric field is applied. Meanwhile, the optimal thickness ratio for the passive layer and the piezoelectric layer is not equal to 1.0 which is usually adopted by previous researchers. Because there exists size dependence of membrane deformation, the optimal value of this thickness ratio needs to be greater than 1.0 on the microscale.     

An analysis of interface boundary layers based on the couple stress theory

Investigated in this paper are the effects of strain gradients on the stress distribution near an interface. The quasi axis-symmetry interface problem is solved by using the couple stress theory and the perturbation method. The results show that a boundary layer exists near an interface or a fixed boundary, where the shear stress perpendicular to the interface is significantly different from that obtained from the classical elasticity theory. Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 19891180).     

Nonlinear static and dynamic responses of an electrically actuated viscoelastic microbeam

On the basis of the Euler-Bernoulli hypothesis, nonlinear static and dynamic responses of a viscoelastic microbeam under two kinds of electric forces [a purely direct current （DC） and a combined current composed of a DC and an alternating current] are studied. By using Taylor series expansion, a governing equation of nonlinear integro-differential type is derived, and numerical analyses are performed. When a purely DC is applied, there exist an instantaneous pull-in voltage and a durable pull-in voltage of which the physical meanings are also given, whereas under an applied combined current, the effect of the element relaxation coefficient on the dynamic pull-in phenomenon is observed where the largest Lyapunov exponent is taken as a criterion for the dynamic pull-in instability of viscoelastic microbeams.     

新修正偶应力层合板理论中的几个基本假设对自由振动计算的影响

基于新修正偶应力理论,在对微细观尺度的复合材料层合梁/板进行力学响应计算时,往往采用一系列假设来简化模型。现有文献都全部或部分应用了这些假设,但对这些假设是否会对计算结果造成影响尚未进行充分讨论分析。本文建立了未经简化的新修正偶应力Reddy层合板模型,并对其自由振动进行了分析。通过数值算例的对比,讨论了常用的几个简化假设对微细观复合材料四边简支方板自振频率的影响以及适用范围。算例结果表明,常用的几个简化假设对于微尺度层合薄板自由振动的影响很小,对于厚板的低阶频率影响也很小,但对厚板的高阶频率影响显著。     

Modeling and analysis of micro-sized plates resting on elastic medium using the modified couple stress theory

Analytical solutions for bending, buckling, and vibration of micro-sized plates on elastic medium using the modified couple stress theory are presented. The governing equations for bending, buckling and vibration are obtained via Hamilton’s principles in conjunctions with the modified couple stress and Kirchhoff plate theories. The surrounding elastic medium is modeled as the Winkler elastic foundation. Navier’s method is being employed and analytical solutions for the bending, buckling and free vibration problems are obtained. Influences of the elastic medium and the length scale parameter on the bending, buckling, and vibration properties are discussed.     

偶应力理论下拉力型锚固体的受力特性

锚固体的受力特征及其影响因素是锚固体设计的重要依据,直接影响锚固效果。传统的经典弹性理论没有考虑应变梯度的影响。偶应力理论引进弯曲曲率,考虑了弯曲效应对介质变形特性的影响。基于偶应力理论,建立了平面应变问题的有限元计算模型,研究锚固体锚固段界面上的剪应力分布、锚固体轴力分布、偶应力的尺度效应以及弹性模量和围压对锚固力的影响,并将偶应力理论的计算结果和经典弹性理论的计算结果进行了比较。结果表明,在偶应力理论下,锚固体锚固段界面的剪应力有所减小,特别是峰值处的剪应力减小明显;岩土的弹性模量越大,锚固界面局部剪应力越大;锚固力随着围压的增大而增大,偶应力尺度效应明显。     

Investigation of size-dependent quasistatic response of electrically actuated nonlinear viscoelastic microcantilevers and microbridges

This study investigates the size-dependent quasistatic response of a nonlinear viscoelastic microelectromechanical system (MEMS) under an electric actuation. To have this problem in view, the deformable electrode of the MEMS is modelled using cantilever and doubly-clamped viscoelastic microbeams. The modified couple stress theory in conjunction with Bernoulli–Euler beam theory are used for mathematical modeling of the size-dependent instability of microsystems in the framework of linear viscoelastic theory. Simultaneous effect of electrostatic actuation including fringing field, residual stress, mid-plane stretching and Casimir and van der Waals intermolecular forces are considered in the theoretical model. A single element of the standard linear solid element is used to simulate the viscoelastic behavior. Based on the extended Hamilton’s variational principle, the nonlinear governing integro-differential equation and boundary conditions are derived. Thereafter, a new generalized differential-integral quadrature solution for the nonlinear quasistatic response of electrically actuated viscoelastic micro/nanobeams under two different boundary conditions; doubly-clamped microbridge and clamped-free microcantilever. The developed model is verified and a good agreement is obtained. Finally, a comprehensive study is conducted to investigate the effects of various parameters such as material relaxation time, durable modulus, material length scale parameter, Casimir force, van der Waals force, initial gap and beam length on the pull-in response of viscoelastic microbridges and microcantilevers in the framework of viscoelasticity.