Self-buckling of a vertical rod

A vertical rod can buckle under its own distributed weight. For a rod clamped below and free above, the threshold is set by a Bessel-function eigenvalue rather than the sinusoidal mode of a rod under constant end load.

For a uniform elastic filament clamped below and free above, its own weight gives filament tension $T(z)=-\lambda g(L-z)$. With filament bending modulus $B=EI$, the static slope $u$ satisfies $B{u}^{\prime \prime }+\lambda g(L-z)u=0$, $u(0)=0$, and $u^{\prime }(L)=0$. Setting $\eta =(2/3)\sqrt{\lambda g/B}(L-z{)}^{3/2}$ gives $u={\eta }^{1/3}{J}_{-1/3}(\eta )$ up to amplitude; the $J_{1/3}$ branch violates the zero-moment condition. The first positive zero $j_{-1/3,1}$ therefore yields $\lambda g{L}_c^3/B\simeq 7.83735$. This is a self-buckling of a vertical rod threshold, not a constant-end-load Euler threshold.