Static analysis of a curved shaft subjected to end torques

Both the exact closed-fotm solution and a numerical solution by the differential quadrature method (DQM) are obtained to predict the out-of-plane static behavior of a curved shaft subjected to end torques, based on the curved-beam versions of the classical (Bernoulli-Euler) and shear deforma.ble (Bresse-Timoshenko) beam theories. Deflections, twist angles, bending moments, and twisting moments are calculated for the cases of a circular arc of circular cross section with clamped and simply supported boundary conditions, and results obtained by the two methods compared. The DQM gives good accuracy even when only a limited number of grid points is used.