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Civil Engineering & Construction vocabulary · Structures and Loads

Shear

Meaning in civil engineering & construction, with examples

/ʃɪr/nounCommon term

In civil engineering & construction, shear means: A force that acts across a member and tries to make one part slide past the next. In beams it is highest near the supports and can cause diagonal cracking.

In Turkish: kesme, kesme kuvveti, kayma

How it is used

Engineers check shear force, shear capacity and shear reinforcement (links or stirrups). Shear walls are concrete walls that resist horizontal loads from wind and earthquakes.

Example sentences

  1. Shear governs near the supports, so we've reduced the stirrup spacing there.

  2. The building's lateral stability comes from two shear walls around the stair core.

Common collocations

  • shear force
  • shear wall
  • shear reinforcement
  • shear capacity
  • punching shear
  • bending momentThe turning effect of loads on a beam or slab that makes it bend. It is measured in kilonewton-metres (kNm) and is largest where the member is most heavily stressed.
  • beamA horizontal structural member that carries loads across an opening and passes them to the columns or walls at its ends. It works mainly in bending.
  • seismicRelating to earthquakes and the ground shaking they cause. In engineering it describes the loads, design rules and details that help structures resist earthquakes.
  • rebarShort for reinforcing bar: a steel bar with ribs on its surface, placed in concrete to resist tension and hold the concrete together.

More terms: Structures and Loads

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