Size-dependent nonlinear vibration of non-uniform microbeam with various boundary conditions

In this article, for the first time, the effect of non-uniformity of microbeam cross section and various boundary conditions on the nonlinear vibration of microbeam is investigated considering the size dependent behavior based on modified couple stress theory. Using the Hamilton’s principle, the governing equation of Euler–Bernoulli microbeam with von Karman geometric nonlinearity based on the modified couple stress theory is derived. The nonlinear vibration governing equation is then solved using the Generalized Differential Quadrature method (GDQ) and direct iterative method to obtain the nonlinear natural frequencies. In this step, the Galerkin method is used to reduce the nonlinear PDE governing the vibration into a time-dependent ODE of Duffing-type. The time domain is then discretized via spectral differentiation matrix operators which are defined based on the derivatives of a periodic base function. Next, the nonlinear parametric equation is solved using pseudo arc-length method and the frequency–response curves of microbeam nonlinear forced vibration is obtained. Finally, nonlinear natural frequency and frequency response of microbeam with various non-uniformity of cross sections and boundary conditions are obtained. Present results show that, the nonlinear free and forced vibration of microbeam is size dependent. Moreover, this size dependency is more significant for non-uniform microbeam and is deferent for various boundary conditions. The result of present method for simple case including uniform section and simply supported boundary condition is validated with that of exact method and have good agreement.