Geometrically Nonlinear Bending of a Cantiliever Under Combined Load: Experimental and Analytic Study

The paper considers the geometrically nonlinear bending of a thin elastic cantilever under combined transverse load: concentrated load acting on a cantilever’s free end and uniformly distributed gravitational load acting on the whole length of the cantilever. The authors proposed an approximate analytic solution based on the linearized Eurel-Bernoulli equation. The authors performed an experimental study to obtain axial displacement, sagging deflection and bending shapes to verify the proposed solution. Comparison between experimental and analytical results has shown high accuracy of the approximate solution to describe geometrically nonlinear bending of thin elastic rods.