Small-scale effects on the buckling of quadrilateral nanoplates based on nonlocal elasticity theory using the Galerkin method

The elastic buckling behavior of quadrilateral single-layered graphene sheets (SLGS) under bi-axial compression is studied employing nonlocal continuum mechanics. Small-scale effects are taken into consideration. The principle of virtual work is employed to derive the governing equations. The Galerkin method in conjunction with the natural coordinates of the nanoplate is used as a basis for the analysis. The buckling load of skew, rhombic, trapezoidal, and rectangular nanoplates considering various geometrical parameters are obtained. It is shown that nonlocal effects are very important in arbitrary quadrilateral graphene sheets and their inclusion results in smaller buckling loads. Also the effects of geometrical parameters such as aspect ratio, angle, and mode number on the buckling load decrease when scale coefficient increases, for all arbitrary quadrilateral SLGS.