RMIT University
Browse

Investigating size effects of complex nanostructures through Young-Laplace equation and finite element analysis

journal contribution
posted on 2024-11-01, 23:09 authored by Dingjie Lu, Yimin XieYimin Xie, Qing Li, Xiaodong Huang, Shiwei ZhouShiwei Zhou
Analytical studies on the size effects of a simply-shaped beam fixed at both ends have successfully explained the sudden changes of effective Young's modulus as its diameter decreases below 100 nm. Yet they are invalid for complex nanostructures ubiquitously existing in nature. In accordance with a generalized Young-Laplace equation, one of the representative size effects is transferred to non-uniformly distributed pressure against an external surface due to the imbalance of inward and outward loads. Because the magnitude of pressure depends on the principal curvatures, iterative steps have to be adopted to gradually stabilize the structure in finite element analysis. Computational results are in good agreement with both experiment data and theoretical prediction. Furthermore, the investigation on strengthened and softened Young's modulus for two complex nanostructures demonstrates that the proposed computational method provides a general and effective approach to analyze the size effects for nanostructures in arbitrary shape.

History

Journal

Journal of Applied Physics

Volume

118

Number

204301

Issue

20

Start page

1

End page

6

Total pages

6

Publisher

American Institute of Physics Inc.

Place published

United States

Language

English

Copyright

© 2015 AIP Publishing LLC

Former Identifier

2006059259

Esploro creation date

2020-06-22

Fedora creation date

2016-03-04