Large deflection of constant curvature cantilever beam under follower load

This paper describes a method to analyze for the large deflections of curved prismatic cantilever beams with uniform curvature subjected to a follower load at the tip. The large deflection, the deflection dependent follower load and the initial curved geometry are the important features of the beam considered in this work. Shear force formulation proposed by Lee [Large deflections of cantilever beams of non-linear elastic material under a combined loading. Int J Non-Linear Mech 2002;37(3)] is used for deriving the governing equations. Using this approach, the resulting two point boundary value problem (TPBVP) can be reduced to an initial value problem (IVP). Fourth order Runge–Kutta method along with one parameter reverse shooting method is applied to the numerical solution to the problem. A novel approach presented in this paper of integrating from the free end to the fixed end of the cantilever beam simply replaces the two parameter shooting with a single parameter shooting yielding several advantages. This solution technique is demonstrated for various types of follower tip loads on curved and straight cantilever beams and is validated with existing solutions in the literature.