Large Deflection of Thin Plates in Convex or Concave Cylindrical Bending

Abstract

Considered in this paper is a special case relating to the large deflection of a thin beam. One end of the beam is fixed (i.e., clamped) to a rigid wall, whereas the other end is placed on a flat surface of arbitrary orientation. In previous studies, unique and non-unique solutions to the deflected shape were derived for cases in which the curvature of the beam experiences at least one change in sign. In this paper, a special case is examined in which the curvature of the beam does not change sign. Experimental results from photographs of deflected beams are presented to support the numerical predictions. An excellent agreement was found between the photographed and the predicted shapes.