An idealized weightless beam is made of two materials rigidi

An idealized weightless beam is made of two materials: “rigidium” (which is rigid) near its supports and “softie” (…a rather soft material…) - in the middle segment (of length 0.1L).

During service, the curvature of the beam has been measured to be \'phi\' m in the entire segment made with “softie” and zero elsewhere. What is the maximum deflection in the beam? Show your work.

Solution

The maximum deflection need not occur at the point where the load is applied. It occurs at the point where the tangent to the deflection curve is horizontal.