Effect of surface layer thickness on buckling and vibration of nonlocal nanowires

• The buckling and vibration behavior of nonlocal nanowires by incorporating surface elasticity is investigated.
• A modified core–shell model is developed and verified to depict the size effect of Youngʼs modulus.
• The buckling load and natural frequency of nanowires increase when the effect of surface layer thickness is considered.
• The influence of surface layer thickness becomes obvious as the diameter of nanowires is smaller than 50 nm.

In this Letter, the buckling and vibration behavior of nonlocal nanowires by incorporating surface elasticity is investigated. A modified core–shell model is developed to depict the size effect of Youngʼs modulus and validated by the reported experimental data. Our results show that the buckling load and natural frequency of nanowires increase when the effect of surface layer thickness is taken into account. Moreover, as the diameter of nanowires is smaller than 50 nm, the influence of surface layer thickness becomes obvious. This work can be helpful in characterizing and predicting the buckling and vibration behavior of NWs.