Forced vibration analysis of viscoelastic nanobeams embedded in an elastic medium

Forced vibration analysis of a simple supported viscoelastic nanobeam is studied based on modified couple stress theory (MCST). The nanobeam is excited by a transverse triangular force impulse modulated by a harmonic motion. The elastic medium is considered as Winkler-Pasternak elastic foundation.The damping effect is considered by using the Kelvin Voigt viscoelastic model. The inclusion of an additional material parameter enables the new beam model to capture the size effect. The new non-classical beam model reduces to the classical beam model when the length scale parameter is set to zero. The considered problem is investigated within the Timoshenko beam theory by using finite element method. The effects of the transverse shear deformation and rotary inertia are included according to the Timoshenko beam theory. The obtained system of differential equations is reduced to a linear algebraic equation system and solved in the time domain by using Newmark average acceleration method. Numerical results are presented to investigate the influences the material length scale parameter, the parameter of the elastic medium and aspect ratio on the dynamic response of the nanobeam. Also, the difference between the classical beam theory (CBT) and modified couple stress theory is investigated for forced vibration responses of nanobeams.