On Stability of Non-inflectional Elastica

Abstract

This study considers the stability of a non-inflectional elastica under a conservative end force subject to the Dirichlet, mixed, and Neumann boundary conditions. It is demonstrated that the non-inflectional elastica subject to the Dirichlet boundary conditions is unconditionally stable, while for the other two boundary conditions, sufficient criteria for stability depend on the signs of the second derivatives of the tangent angle at the endpoints.