Abstract

The large deflection of a prismatic Euler-Bernoulli cantilever beam under a combination of end-concentrated coplanar inclined force and tip-concentrated moment is investigated. The angle of inclination of the applied force with respect to the horizontal axis remains unchanged during deformation. The cantilever beam is assumed to be naturally straight, slender, inextensible and elastic. The large deflection of the cantilever beam induces geometrical nonlinearity; hence, the nonlinear theory of bending and the exact expression of curvature are used. Based on an elliptic integral formulation, an accurate numerical solution is obtained in terms of an integration constant that should satisfy the boundary conditions associated with the cantilever beam. For some special cases this integration constant is exactly found, which leads to closed form solution. The numerical solution obtained is quite simple, accurate and involves less computational time compared with other techniques available in literature. The details of elastica and its corresponding orientation curves are presented and analyzed for extremely large load combinations. A comparative study with pre-obtained results has been made to verify the accuracy of the presented solution; an excellent agreement has been obtained.

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