Analogies between a Meniscus and a Cantilever

Systematic and quantitative analyses of exact analogies between a meniscus and an elastica are performed. It is shown that the two governing equations take the same style after coordinate translation and scale transformation. The morphologies of the liquid bridge and the cantilever are calculated in terms of elliptic integrations, which can be reduced to the same shape after converting the boundary conditions. The present analyses can make us grasp the nature of this physical phenomenon deeply and show some inspiration for designing the analogy experiments. Moreover, the calculated results are helpful to engineering applications, such as design and fabrication of MEMS, and micro-manipulations in micro/nano- technology.