Fracture in strain gradient elasticity

Mixed mode near-tip fields for cracks in materials with strain-gradient effects

This work is concerned with transverse vibrations of axially traveling nanobeams including strain gradient and thermal effects. The strain gradient elasticity theory and the temperature field are taken into consideration. A new higher-order differential equation of motion is derived from the variational principle and the corresponding higher-order non-classical boundary conditions including simple, clamped, cantilevered supports and their higher-order "offspring" are established. Effects of strain gradient nanoscale parameter, temperature change, shape parameter and axial traction on the natural frequencies are presented and discussed through some numerical examples. It is concluded that the factors mentioned above significantly influence the dynamic behaviors of an axially traveling nanobeam. In particular, the strain gradient effect tends to induce higher vibration frequencies as compared to an axially traveling macro beams based on the classical vibration theory without strain gradient effect.

The near-tip asymptotic field and full-field solution are obtained for a mode III crack in an elastic material with strain gradient effects. The asymptotic analysis shows that, even though the near-tip field is governed by a single parameter B (similar to the mode III stress intensity factor), the near-tip field is very different from the classical KIII field; stresses have r -3/2 singularity near the crack tip, and are significantly larger than the classical K III field within a zone of size l to the crack tip, where l is an intrinsic material length, depending on microstructures in the material. This high-order stress singularity, however, does not violate the boundness of strain energy around a crack tip. The parameter B of the near-tip asymptotic field has been determined for two anti-plane shear loadings: the remotely imposed classical K III field, and the arbitrary shear stress tractions on crack faces. The mode III full-field solution is obtained analytically for an elastic material with strain gradient effects subjected to remotely imposed classical K III field. It shows that the near-tip asymptotic field dominates within a zone of size 0.5 l to the crack tip, while strain gradient effects are clearly observed within 5l. It is also shown that the conventional way to evaluate the crack tip energy release rate would lead to an incorrect, infinite value. A new evaluation gives a finite crack tip energy release rate, and is identical to the J-integral.

Modeling deformation of auxetic and non-auxetic polymer gels

In the present manuscript, the second strain gradient (SSG) is utilized to investigate the primary resonance of a nonlinear Euler-Bernoulli nanobeam is analyzed in this paper for the first time. To that end, the second strain gradient theory, a higher-order continuum theory capable of taking the size effects into account, is utilized and the governing equation of the motion for an Euler-Bernoulli nanobeam is derived with sixteen higher-order material constants. Then by implementing the Galerkin’s method,the Duffing equation for the vibration of a hinged-hinged nanobeam is obtained and its primary resonance is studied utilizing the method of multiple scales. The size effects and impact of various system parameters on the amplitude of the response are then investigated for three different materials and the results are compared to thatof the first strain gradient and classical theories. The results of this manuscript clearly shows that the nonlinear vibration of a second strain gradient nanobeam is size-dependent and although the difference between the results obtained by the second strain gradient theory and the first strain gradient theory is negligible for thicker beams, as the thickness decreases, the difference becomes more prominent. Also, the effects of nonlinearity on the forced vibration nonlinear response of an SSG beam are investigated and some observations are reported.

The effective threshold for fatigue crack propagation: a plastic size effect?

Micromechanical modeling of damage evolution and fracture behavior in particle reinforced metal matrix composites based on the conventional theory of mechanism-based strain gradient plasticity

Mode I and mode II stress intensity factors and dislocation density behaviour in strain gradient plasticity

In this paper, formulation of elastic-plastic analysis of functionally graded (FG) spherical pressure vessels under internal pressure based on strain gradient plasticity is presented. The material properties are assumed to vary in a power law manner in the radial direction. A linear hardening rule for the material behavior in the plastic region is assumed. After deriving the governing differential equations, a closed form solution is obtained. At the first step, the obtained results were validated against other available results in the literature. Then the effects of changing the inner radius from a few micro-meters to one meter, FG power index and strain gradient coefficient on stress and plastic region size are studied based on classical and strain gradient theories. Also, the effect of internal pressure on the size of plastic region is studied.

In this article, an analytical approach is proposed for the problem of an elastic half‐space under symmetrically distributed normal force with arbitrary profile including uniform pressure, Boussinesq flat‐ended punch, conical punch and Hertz's spherical punch. The formulation of the work is on the basis of Mindlin's first strain gradient theory with five material length scale parameters. Also, the surface effects are taken into account using the Gurtin‐Murdoch surface elasticity theory. The developed mathematical formulation is general so that it can be simply reduced to different strain gradient‐based theories such as the modified versions of strain gradient and modified couple stress theories (MSGT and MCST), the simplified strain gradient theory (A‐SGT), as well as the classical theory (CT). In the solution procedure, an analytical method is applied using the Fourier and Hankel transforms. In the numerical results, the effects of material length scale parameters and kind of punch on the surface displacements and stresses of the half‐space are analyzed. The surface influences are also comprehensively studied. Moreover, comparisons are made between the predictions of MSGT, MCST, A‐SGT and CT. This work shows that the material length scale parameters of Mindlin's first SGT play important roles in the response of half‐space. Also, the presented results provide a comparison between the intensity of effects of strain gradient parameters and surface parameters.

Large-amplitude coupled scale-dependent behaviour of geometrically imperfect NSGT nanotubes

The governing equations of motion, together with the associated boundary conditions, are derived for the second strain gradient Timoshenko micro- and nano-beams. The second strain gradient theory is a highly powerful nonclassical continuum theory, capable of capturing the size effects in micro- and nano-scale structures. In case studies, the static and free-vibration behaviors of a hinged–hinged beam are investigated utilizing the presented second strain gradient theory-based Timoshenko beam model. The obtained results are compared with those of the available models in the literature, which are based on the (first) strain gradient theory, the modified couple stress theory, and the classical continuum theory.

The usual continuum theories are inadequate in predicting the mechanical behavior of solids in the presence of small defects and stress concentrators; it is well known that such continuum methods are unable to detect the change of the size of the inhomogeneities and defects. For these reasons various augmented continuum theories and strain gradient theories have been proposed in the literature. The major difficulty in implication of these theories lies in the lack of information about the additional material constants which appear in such theories. For fcc metals, for the calculation of the associated characteristic lengths which arise in first strain gradient theory, an atomistic approach based on the Sutton–Chen interatomic potential function is proposed. For the validity of the computed characteristic lengths, the phenomenon of the size effect pertinent to a nano-sized circular void within an fcc (111) plane is examined via both first strain gradient theory and lattice statics. Comparison of the results explains the physical ramifications of the characteristic lengths in improving the usual continuum results. Moreover, by reconsideration of the Kelvin problem it is shown that a commonly employed variant of the first strain gradient theory is only valid for a few fcc metals.

Determination of length scale parameters of strain gradient continuum theory for crystalline solids using a computational quantum mechanical model based on density functional theory

Thermoelastic analysis of rotating functionally graded micro/nanodisks of variable thickness