Boundary element analysis of nanoinhomogeneities of arbitrary shapes with surface and interface effects

In this paper, a boundary element method (BEM) is proposed to analyze the stress field in nanoinhomogeneities with surface/interface effect. To consider this effect, the continuity conditions along the internal interfaces between the matrix and inhomogeneities are modeled by the well-known Gurtin-Murdoch constitutive relation. In the numerical analysis, the interface elastic moduli and the geometry of the nanoscale inhomogeneity are varied to show their influence on the induced stress field. The interaction between nanoscale inhomogeneities and the effect of different geometric shapes of inhomogeneities, including ellipse, triangle, and square are also investigated for different interface material parameters. It is shown that the elastic field can be greatly influenced by the interfacial energy and geometry of nanoscale inhomogeneities. The proposed BEM formulation is very general, including the complete Gurtin-Murdoch model and is further convenient for arbitrary shapes of inhomogeneity. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.