 Free-end bending boundary conditions

Variation of the small-slope bending energy of an elastic filament gives endpoint work $A[h^{(2)}\delta h^{(1)}-h^{(3)}\delta h]$. Arbitrary endpoint displacement and slope variations force the bending moment and transverse force to vanish. These are $h^{(2)}=h^{(3)}=0$. They define a self-adjoint nonnegative fourth-order bending operator on a finite interval; its kernel contains rigid translation and tilt.