Symmetric Structures Made of a Nonlocal Elastic Material

The paper focuses on the analysis of symmetric structures in the context of nonlocal integral elasticity of Eringen-type. In particular, it highlights how the standard (local-type) concept of structural symmetry cannot be applied in a straightforward manner, but it has to be redefined involving an enlarged symmetric model of the structure. Such enlarged model is indeed able to take into account the nonlocal effects exerted on the (standard) symmetric portion of the structure chosen for the analysis by the portion neglected. The appropriate boundary conditions that have to be applied to the enlarged symmetric model for guaranteeing the exact matching between the mirrored symmetric solution and the complete one, are also discussed. Two numerical examples are solved by means of a nonlocal version of the finite element method and the results obtained are critically discussed.