Noether symmetries and exact solutions of an Euler-Bernoulli beam model

Abstract

In this paper, a Noether symmetry analysis is carried out for an Euler-Bernoulli beam equation via the standard Lagrangian of its reduced scalar second-order equation which arises from the standard Lagrangian of the fourth-order beam equation via its Noether integrals. The Noether symmetries corresponding to the reduced equation is shown to be the inherited Noether symmetries of the standard Lagrangian of the beam equation. The corresponding Noether integrals of the reduced Euler-Lagrange equations are deduced which remarkably allows for three families of new exact solutions of the static beam equation. These are shown to contain all the previous solutions obtained from the standard Lie analysis and more.