Large deflection of thin plates in cylindrical bending – Non-unique solutions

Considered in this paper is the large deflection of a thin beam. One end of the beam is fixed (clamped) to a rigid wall, while the other end is placed on a flat surface of arbitrary orientation. It is shown that under certain conditions, the solution to the deflected shape of the plate is not unique. Conditions for the existence of multiple solutions are identified. Numerical methodologies are developed to obtain the multiple solutions. Experiments were conducted to verify the numerical predictions. Excellent agreements are found between the predicted deflection and the experimental measurements.