Nonlinear buckling and postbuckling behavior of cylindrical nanoshells subjected to combined axial and radial compressions incorporating surface stress effects

In the present study, the Gurtin-Murdoch elasticity theory, as a theory capable of capturing size effects, is implemented to predict the nonlinear buckling and postbuckling response of cylindrical nanoshells under combined axial and radial compressive loads in the presence of surface stress effects. For this purpose, a size-dependent shell mode containing geometric nonlinearity is proposed within the framework of the classical shell theory. Because it is necessary to satisfy balance conditions on the surfaces of nanoshell, it is assumed that the normal stress component of the bulk varies linearly through the shell thickness. On the basis of a variational formulation using the principle of virtual work, the nonclassical governing differential equations are derived. Subsequently, a boundary layer theory is employed including the nonlinear prebuckling deformations and the large deflections in the postbuckling regime. Then a two-stepped perturbation methodology is utilized to obtain the size-dependent critical buckling loads and the postbuckling equilibrium paths of nanoshells corresponding to the axial dominated and radial dominated loading cases. It is revealed that in the radial dominated loading case, a positive value of surface elastic constants leads to increase the critical buckling load but decrease the critical end-shortening of nanoshell. However, in the axial dominated loading case, surface elastic constants with positive sign causes to increase the both critical buckling load and critical end-shortening of nanoshell. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.