Bending of a cracked functionally graded nanobeam

Abstract

In this study, static bending of an edge cracked cantilever nanobeam composed of functionally graded material (FGM) subjected to transversal point load at the free end of the beam is investigated based on modified couple stress theory. Material properties of the beam change in the height direction according to exponential distributions. The cracked nanobeam is modelled using a proper modification of the classical cracked-beam theory consisting of two sub-nanobeams connected through a massless elastic rotational spring. The inclusion of an additional material parameter enables the new beam model to capture the size effect. The new non-classical beam model reduces to the classical beam model when the length scale parameter is set to zero. The considered problem is investigated within the Euler-Bernoulli beam theory by using finite element method. In order to establish the accuracy of the present formulation and results, the deflections are obtained, and compared with the published results available in the literature. Good agreement is observed. In the numerical study, the static deflections of the edge cracked FGM nanobeams are calculated and discussed for different crack positions, different lengths of the beam, different length scale parameter, different crack depths, and different material distributions. Also, the difference between the classical beam theory and modified couple stress theory is investigated for static bending of edge cracked FGM nanobeams. It is believed that the tabulated results will be a reference with which other researchers can compare their results.