Wave propagation analysis of smart inhomogeneous piezoelectric nanosize beams rested on an elastic medium

Abstract

The present paper is mainly focused on analyzing wave propagation of sigmoid functionally graded (SFG) piezoelectric nanobeams rested on an elastic foundation on the basis of the nonlocal elasticity theory. The small-scale influence is taken into account by employing Eringen’s nonlocal elasticity theory (ENET). Zinc oxide and Lithium niobate are supposed to be constituent materials of the nanoscale structure. Although the common power-law formulation has been used to determine electromechanical properties of functionally graded piezoelectric in the reported investigations, the sigmoid power-law formulation is employed in order to characterize the distribution of electromechanical properties in the current paper. Hamilton’s principle and the Euler–Bernoulli beam theory, which is also known by classic beam theory, are applied to derive nonlocal governing equations of piezoelectric nanobeam. Afterward, the obtained nonlocal governing equations are solved via the analytical method. Eventually, the effect of various parameters, such as wave number, nonlocal parameter, gradient index, slenderness ratio, elastic foundation coefficients, and electric voltage on the variation of wave frequency and phase velocity of SFG piezoelectric nanobeam, is examined and also, the obtained result is presented in a group of illustrations that can be found in detail.