The elliptic integral solution is often considered as the most accurate method for analyzing large deflections of cantilever beams in compliant mechanisms. In this paper, by explicitly including the number of inflection points (m) and the sign of the end-moment load (S_m) in the derivation, a comprehensive solution based on the elliptic integrals is proposed for solving the large deflection problems. The comprehensive solution is capable of solving large deflections of cantilever beams subject to any kind of load cases and of any kind of deflected modes. A few deflected configurations of complex modes solved by the comprehensive solution are presented and discussed. The use of the comprehensive solution in analyzing compliant mechanisms is also demonstrated by a few case studies.
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