Semi-analytical vibration analysis of functionally graded size-dependent nanobeams with various boundary conditions

In this paper, free vibration of functionally graded (FG) size-dependent nanobeams is studied within the framework of nonlocal Timoshenko beam model. It is assumed that material properties of the FG nanobeam, vary continuously through the thickness according to a power-law form. The small scale effect is taken into consideration based on nonlocal elasticity theory of Eringen. The non-classical governing differential equations of motion are derived through Hamilton's principle and they are solved utilizing both Navier-based analytical method and an efficient and semi-analytical technique called differential transformation method (DTM). Various types of boundary conditions such as simply-supported, clamped-clamped, clamped-simply and clamped-free are assumed for edge supports. The good agreement between the presented DTM and analytical results of this article and those available in the literature validated the presented approach. It is demonstrated that the DTM has high precision and computational efficiency in the vibration analysis of FG nanobeams. The obtained results show the significance of the material graduation, nonlocal effect, slenderness ratio and boundary conditions on the vibration characteristics of FG nanobeams.