Surface effects on the elastic modulus of nanoporous materials

The mechanical properties of a nanoporous material depend not only on its porosity but also on its characteristic sizes of microstructure, e.g., the average sizes of ligaments. Classical continuum mechanics models cannot interpret this type of size dependence. We here present a unit-cell micromechanics model to predict the effective Young’s modulus of open-cell nanoporous materials. The theory of surface elasticity is adopted to incorporate the effects of surface energy and residual surface stress on the effective elastic property of nanoporous materials. This model can reasonably elucidate the relevant experimental results.