Impact of surface stress on stress concentration

Effect of surface stress on stress concentration near a spherical void in an elastic medium is examined in the framework of continuum surface elasticity. It is assumed that the void is of spherical shape, and the elastic medium is elastically isotropic and infinitely extended. By using the Papkovitch–Neuber displacement potentials, the elastic field caused by a unidirectional remote load is obtained explicitly. Numerical results show that the influence of surface stress becomes remarkable when the size of the void is reduced to nanometer scale, leading to that stress concentration near the void depends not only on the void size but also on the remote load.