Mechanical behavior of nanocircular plates under coupled surface and nonlocal effects by using molecular dynamics simulations

The equations of control for a circular thin plate under simple support are obtained by coupling the surface effect and non-local effect using the equilibrium method. Molecular dynamics simulations were used to calculate the residual surface strain energies at different crystal orientations. Different crystal orientations of the same material would affect its surface energy and thus result in different mechanical behaviors. The effects of residual surface strain energy and non-local parameters on the mechanical behavior of circular thin plates were analyzed. The analysis reveals that the surface effect and non-local effect on the deflection of the nanoplates are significant. The surface effect parameter of tensile stress increases the deflection, while the opposite is true for the surface effect parameter of compressive stress, and the non-local parameter decreases the deflection. The influence of surface effect and non-local effect is significant for smaller thicknesses and weakens for larger thicknesses.