\(S\)-shaped connected component for the fourth-order boundary value problem (Q343418)

In the article, the authors investigate the deformations of an elastic beam described by the following fourth-order nonlinear differential equation \[ u^{(4)}(x)=\lambda f(x,u(x), u''(x)) \] with boundary conditions \[ u(0)=u(1)=u''(0)=u^{(3)}(1)=0, \] where \(x \in (0,1)\), \(f \in C([0, 1] \times [0,\infty) \times (-\infty, 0], [0,\infty))\), and \(\lambda >0\) is a parameter. The main result of the article consists in Theorem 1.1, which comprises the existence conditions, with respect to the parameter \(\lambda\), of different number of positive solutions of the boundary value problem under consideration. Especially, the authors obtain the existence of at least three distinct positive solutions for \(\lambda\) being in a certain interval.