This paper deals with the large deflection of thin cantilever beams of rectangular cross section subjected to a lateral concentrated load at the free end. Because of the large deflection, geometric non linearity arises and, therefore, the analysis was formulated according to the nonlinear bending theory in which the squares of the first derivatives of the governing Bernoulli-Euler equation cannot be neglected as is done in classical beam theory. The resulting second-order non-linear differential equation leading to elliptic function was solved using the Gauss-Legendre numerical integration method of two to six points approach and are presented in graphical form. Simple experimental procedures were performed for validation purpose. Beams having deep to width ratio of 0.13 and 0.27 were used. It was found in general that experimental results in term of rotation, vertical deflection, and horizontal deflection of the end point of the beams were bigger than those obtained by numerical integration for every deep to width ratio, h/b, where the highest differences were found for high value of h/b. The differences would be expected from the material non linear effect. It should be noted that material non linearity was not considered in the numerical integration, while this effect might be present in the experimental procedures.
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