Static deflection of fully coupled composite Timoshenko beams: An exact analytical solution

The purpose of this paper is to present the exact analytical solution for the static deflection analysis of fully coupled composite Timoshenko beams. The system of governing equations and the boundary conditions are derived from variational principles. Using the method of direct integration, the exact analytical solution of the static deflection of a Timoshenko beam is obtained by solving this system of differential equations in terms of transverse displacements and cross-sectional rotations. Static deflection analyses of Timoshenko beams, subject to various boundary conditions and uniformly distributed and tip loads, are performed and the results are compared to those obtained from classical Euler–Bernoulli theory by using different values of length-to-thickness ratio. In addition, it is shown that for the case of a cantilevered composite beam subject to tip loads, the proposed exact analytical solution is equivalent to the exact solution from the intrinsic formulation. The Chebyshev collocation method is also employed to validate the obtained exact analytical solution. In the proposed formulation the stiffness properties of the composite beam are expressed by engineering constants, therefore is not limited by the cross-sectional shape of the beam, type of material and thus can be utilised for engineering applications and design purposes. The exact analytical solution can also be used as a benchmark for validating results obtained from various numerical methods.