A nonlinear kinematics called the direct strain measure is proposed fo
r large deformation and finite rotation analyses of a two-node Timoshe
nko beam. The kinematics extracts pure elastic deformations without de
riving any virtual frame to describe rigid body motion, internal force
and stiffness matrices are derived to constitute a Newton's method fo
r finding the solution. Computational results show that the present me
thod is valid for Timoshenko beams whose relative angular displacement
in an element is less than 0.5 rad.