arXiv:1002.2678v1 [cond-mat.mtrl-sci] 13 Feb 2010 ∗ Electronic address: marina.toropova@utoronto.ca 1 Dielectric nano-swithes made of the materials that exhibit piezoelectric and/or flexoelectric prop- erties with significant electro-mechanical coupling are considered. In this case, a nonuniform strain field may locally break inversion symmetry and induce polarization even in nonpiezoelectrics. At reducing dimensions to the nanoscale, the flexoelectric effect demonstrates the nonlocality of the dielectric materials and plays more significant role than piezoelectric effect. The flexoelectric ef- fect is included into consideration via additional term coupling strain gradient and polarization in the electric enthalpy density. The equations of motion of the improved Euler-Bernoulli and Timoshenko beam models, and 2-D plate theory have been obtained. Abstract MODELLING OF NONLOCAL EFFECTS IN ELECTROMECHANICAL NANO-SWITCHES M.M. Toropova (Dated: November 1, 2018) Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada ∗