Exact Solutions of Nonlinear Equation of Rod Deflections Involving the Lauricella Hypergeometric Functions

The stress induced in a loaded beam will not exceed some threshold, but also its maximum deflection, as for all the elastic systems, will be controlled. Nevertheless, the linear beam theory fails to describe the large deflections; highly flexible linear elements, namely, rods, typically found in aerospace or oil applications, may experience large displacements—but small strains, for not leaving the field of linear elasticity—so that geometric nonlinearities become significant. In this article, we provide analytical solutions to large deflections problem of a straight, cantilevered rod under different coplanar loadings. Our researches are led by means of the elliptic integrals, but the main achievement concerns the Lauricella FD3 hypergeometric functions use for solving elasticity problems. Each of our analytic solutions has been individually validated by comparison with other tools, so that it can be used in turn as a benchmark, that is, for testing other methods based on the finite elements approximation.