Novel differential quadrature element method for higher order strain gradient elasticity theory

In this paper, we propose a novel and efficient differential quadrature element based on Lagrange interpolation to solve a sixth order partial differential equations encountered in non-classical beam theories. These non-classical theories render displacement, slope and curvature as degrees of freedom for an Euler-Bernoulli beam. A generalize scheme is presented herein to implementation the multi-degrees degrees of freedom associated with these non-classical theories in a simplified and efficient way. The proposed element has displacement as the only degree of freedom in the domain, whereas, at the boundaries it has displacement, slope and curvature. Further, we extend this methodology and formulate two novel versions of plate element for gradient elasticity theory. In the first version, Lagrange interpolation is assumed in x and y directions and the second version is based on mixed interpolation, with Lagrange interpolation in x direction and Hermite interpolation in y direction. The procedure to compute the modified weighting coefficients by incorporating the classical and non-classical boundary conditions is explained. The efficiency of the proposed elements is demonstrated through numerical examples on static analysis of gradient elastic beams and plates for different boundary conditions.