Abstract

The literature reveals that the non-conservative deflection of an elastic cantilever beam caused by applying follower tip loading was investigated and solved by various numerical methods like: Runge Kutta, iterative shooting, finite element, finite difference, direct iterative and non-iterative numerical methods. This is due to the fact that the Euler–Bernoulli nonlinear differential equation governing the problem contains the “slope at the free end”, this slope however needs special numerical treatment. On the other hand, some of these methods fail to find numerical solutions for extremely large loading conditions. Hence, this paper is aimed to obtain a closed-form solution for solving the large deflection of a cantilever beam opposed to a concentrated point follower load at its free end. This closed-form solution when compared with other conventional numerical approaches is characterized by simplicity, stability and straightforwardness in getting the beam deflection and slopes even for extremely large loading conditions. The closed-form solution is obtained by applying complex analysis along with elliptic-integral approach. Very good results were obtained when the elastica of the beam compared with that of various numerical methods which are used in analyzing similar problem.

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