▎ 摘　　要

The elastic buckling behavior of multi sized graphene nanoribbons under compressive loadings is being investigated via a spring based structural mechanics approach. The proposed method utilizes three different types of translational, two-noded spring elements of three degrees of freedom per node to represent separately bond stretching, bond angle bending and bond angle torsion interatomic interactions within graphene nanostructure. The idea is to represent bending and torsional interatomic interactions in such a way that the coupling of deformations between bonds may be achieved in a realistic way. Critical buckling loads of graphene nanoribbons are revealed with respect to their length, width as well as chirality for two different edge boundary conditions. Despite the discrete atomistic structure of nanoribbons, their buckled shapes are found to be sine waved and thus Euler's buckling formulas are adopted to estimate their flexural rigidity. The numerical results, which are compared with corresponding evidence given in the literature where possible, demonstrate thoroughly the influence of size and chirality of graphene monolayer on its buckling behavior and flexural rigidity. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.