Stress-driven nonlocal integral model for Timoshenko elastic nano-beams

Size-dependent structural behavior of inflected Timoshenko elastic nano-beams is investigated by nonlocal continuum mechanics. An innovative stress-driven integral model of elasticity is conceived by swapping source and output fields of Eringen's strain-driven theory. Unlike Eringen's model, the stress-driven nonlocal integral formulation leads to well-posed structural problems. Solution uniqueness and continuous dependence on data are thus ensured. Selected case-studies of technical interest are examined and exact nonlocal solutions of Timoshenko nano-beams are provided, detecting thus also new benchmarks for numerical analyses. The contributed results are compared with those obtained by the gradient theory of elasticity and by the differential constitutive model consequent (not equivalent) to Eringen's strain-driven theory equipped with Helmholtz's kernel.