Fracture analysis of nanobeams based on the stress-driven non-local theory of elasticity

Mode I fracture behavior of edge- and centrally-cracked nanobeams is analyzed by employing both stress-driven non-local theory of elasticity and Bernoulli–Euler beam theory. The present formulation implements the size-dependency experimentally observed at material micro- and nano-scale, by assuming a non-local constitutive law, that relates the strain to the stress in each material point of the body, through an integral convolution and a kernel. It is observed that the energy release rate decreases by increasing the nonlocality, showing the superior fracture performance of nanobeams with respect to large-scale beams.