21.

Thin plate theory including surface effects

Abstract
In the paper, a general thin plate theory including surface effects, which can be used for size-dependent static and
dynamic analysis of plate-like thin film structures, is proposed. This theory is a modification and generalization of
the thin plate model in [Lim, C.W., He, L.H., 2004. Size-dependent nonlinear response of thin elastic films with
nanoscale
thickness. Int. J. Mech. Sci. 46, 1715–1726]. With the general theory, the governing equations of Kirchoff and
Mindlin plate models including surface effects are derived, respectively. Some numerical examples are provided to
verify
the validities of the theory.

Understanding mechanical properties of these elements are of fundamental

concern in design and predicting performance of the devices. For structures with submicron sizes,
due to the increasing surface-to-bulk ratio, surface effects are likely to be significant and can considerably
modify macroscopic properties

effective elastic properties of nanobeams and nanoplates are strongly sizedependent.

Despite molecular dynamics based methods have been increasingly applied to modeling and
simulation of nanomaterials and nanostrctural elements, they are restricted by computational capacities.

Even classical molecular dynamics computations are still limited to simulating on the order of 10 6–108
atoms for a few nanoseconds. For MEMS/NEMS structures and elements with at least one dimension
in micro-range (micro/nanobeam, plates, thin film, etc.), modeling and simulation of their overall physical
and mechanical properties and long time range dynamics analysis must be left to continuum methods.

Therefore, size-independent classical plate theories, in which surface effects are ignored, can be modified
accordingly for the modeling of ultra-thin plate-like structures.

It is known that surface of a solid is a region with its own atom arrangement and property differing
from the bulk

To incorporate the effects of the surface, Gurtin

and Murdoch (1975a,b) modified the theory of classical mechanics by modeling the surface as a
twodimensional
membrane with different material properties adhering to the underlying bulk material without
slipping.

The presence of surface stresses thus results in a set of non-classical boundary conditions,
which present the surface tractions on the bulk substrate in terms of surface stresses and inertia. The
non-classical boundary conditions, the surface stress–strain relations, and the equations of classical
elasticity
for bulk material together form a coupled system of field equations. Based on the approach, it is
demonstrated that the surface effects can be interpreted and treated by additional size-dependent terms
added to overall elastic moduli of considered structural elements

The surface
elasticity theory by Gurtin and Murdoch (1975a,b) offers a continuum mechanics model to study
mechanical
behavior of material with surface effects, and have received increasing interests in more recent
researches
in studying some mechanical problems in structural elements with nanoscale dimensions

This continuum mechanics approach

relies significantly on reliable constitutive constants of the surface layer, which could be determined by
experiments or atomistic computations. It is shown that with correctly choose surface elastic properties,
the continuum model is generally found to agree well with atomistic simulations

The purpose of this paper is to generalize the size-dependent thin plate model developed by Lim and He
(2004) based on Gurtin and Murdoch_s surface elasticity theory (1975a,b)

Lim and He (2004) suggested a

continuum model which can be applied to bending analysis of thin elastic film with nanoscale thickness.
By
reviewing the derivations of the model, it is found that the normal stress along the surface of bulk
substrate
is still ignored as treated in the classical plate theories, and therefore, some of the surface
equilibrium relations
in Gurtin and Murdoch (1975a,b) cannot be satisfied. This simplification is accurate enough for the
problems with relatively large-scale sizes. If the thickness of studied film is reduced to its critical length
scale, this treatment may induce some errors, especially for nanosized problems.

To take into account the equilibrium of surface, the normal stress inside and on the surface of
bulk
substrate is introduced in the present work. Since the plate structures are thin, the normal stress
along
the thickness inside the bulk material can be assumed properly (linear assumption in the paper), and
satisfies
the constitutive relations on the surface.

The general governing equations of the thin plate including

surface effects can be derived by integrating the constitutive equations of bulk material through the
thickness
and replacing bulk stress components on the surface by the surface stress components through the
equilibrium relations between the surface and the bulk materials.
 22. Size-dependent response of ultra-thin films
with surface effects

Abstract
A modified continuum model of elastic films with nano-scale thickness is proposed by incorporating surface elasticity
into the conventional nonlinear Von Karman plate theory. By using Hamilton’s principle, the governing equations and
boundary conditions of the ultra-thin film including surface effects are derived within the Kirchhoff’s assumption,
where
the effects of non-zero normal stress and large deflection are taken into account simultaneously. The present model
is then
applied to studying the bending, buckling and free vibration of simply supported micro/nano-scale thin films in-plane
strains and explicit exact solutions can be obtained for these three cases. The size-dependent mechanical behavior
of
the thin film due to surface effects is well elucidated in the obtained solutions.
The superior elastic
properties depending on the absolute size of ultra-thin films have dawn significant interest

When the thickness of these films reduces to submicron scale, the surface effects on the elastic
properties of
plate-like thin films, which is usually neglected in classical thin plate elasticity theory (Reddy, 1999; Yu,
1995), becomes significant with the increase of surface-to-bulk ratio

It is known that there exists a size-dependent mechanical response of ultra-thin elastic films with
nano-scale thickness . The understanding and modeling of such size-dependence due to surface effects
is currently of particular interest

Atomistic simulation results have shown that elastic constants of ultra-thin films can be larger or smaller
than their bulk counterparts due to the effect of surface elasticity

In addition, the atomistic lattice model further demonstrates that the values of elastic constants of ultra-
thin
films are thickness dependent and approach the bulk value as the film thickness increases

However, systematic atomistic studies of mechanical

response of thin films need a tremendous computational source and hence they are limited in practical
application.

Gurtin and Murdoch (1975a,b, 1978) formulated a generic continuum model of surface elasticity,
where the surface of solids can be viewed as a two-dimensional elastic membrane with different material
constants
adhering to the underlying bulk material without slipping.

It is found that the continuum model by

incorporating surface elasticity can predict the same accurate elastic response of thin films as the case of
atomistic
modeling if the proper surface constitutive constants are used

Recently, He
et al. (2004) proposed a rigorous continuum surface elasticity model and successfully analyzed the size-
dependent
deformation of nanofilms. The surface effects on the large deflection of ultra-thin films are investigated by
incorporating surface elasticity into the Von Karman plate theory without consideration of the non-zero
normal
stress along the thickness direction (Lim and He, 2004). The continuum model proposed by Lu et al.
(2006) takes into account the effect of non-zero normal stress but neglects the effect of nonlinearity.

The widely used linearized constitutive relations on the surface developed by Gurtin and Murdoch
(1975a,b, 1978) are employed in the derivation as the first-order assumption for the constitutive relations
of
surface are very complicated. The influences of the nonlinear strain terms, non-zero normal stress in the
thickness
direction, static and dynamic factors are taken into account simultaneously. As the thickness of thin films
reduces to nanometer scale, both the nonlinear strain terms and the surface effects can be very important
and
therefore these effects are investigated in this paper.
 23. A Size-Dependent Continuum Model for
Nanoscale Circular Plates

Abstract— Nanoscale circular plates are encountered in several nanotechnology-based devices such
as nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS). Structures are size-dependent at nanoscale due to surface
energy effects. It is possible to capture such size-dependency through special continuum models. In
this paper, the Gurtin-Murdoch continuum theory is applied to develop a new continuum mechanics
model for static deformation of thin and thick circular nanoplates. The relevant governing equations
are established from basic principles. It is shown that the governing equations possess a closed-form
analytical solution that makes the current approach suitable for device analysis and design. A series of
closed form analytical solutions is presented for static bending of thin and thick plates under common
static loading (uniformly distributed and centre point) and boundary conditions (simply supported and
clamped edges). The analytical solution for a thin plate supported by a linear elastic substrate is also
presented. Deflection profiles of selected silicon and aluminum plates are presented and compared
with the classical plate theory results to examine the salient features of mechanical response and
influence of surface elastic moduli, surface residual stress and boundary conditions.