Bending, extension, and torsion of naturally twisted rods (Q1819585)

Saint-Venant established that the spatial problem of linear elasticity theory of the deformation of straight rods with a load-free side surface allows of practically complete investigation: the extension problem is solved exactly (if the boundary layer is ignored), and the bending and torsion problems reduce to Neumann problems for the Laplace equation in the region of the rod cross-section. It is shown that an analogous situation holds for a naturally twisted rod: the spatial problem is successfully reduced to a Neumann-type problem for a certain system of second-order elliptic equations in the cross-section. It is essential that this can be done for an arbitrary value of the rod twist. For zero twist the problem in the section reduces to the Saint-Venant problem. In the case of centrally-symmetric sections, the problem decomposes into two independent problems, on bending and on extension-torsion. Variational principles and certain bilateral estimates of the extension and torsion stiffness are constructed for the latter, and the case of oblong sections is investigated.