Beam shear angle 2026-11-05
The beam shear angle is the small-angle difference between centreline slope and material-section beam cross-section rotation:With transverse coordinate and kinematics , , the engineering shear strain is . The Euler-Bernoulli beam equation imposes ; a shear-deformable model permits and to vary independently. The primary beam account distinguishes these kinematics and relates transverse force to the resulting shear measure.[ref]
Applied Mechanics of Solids by A. F. Bower. §8.7.2, Summary of beam theory, Timoshenko rotation and force/displacement relation
For an original local example, suppose shape measurements give , while section markers give radians in the same sign convention. Then , about degrees. Setting the section rotation equal to the observed slope would erase this measured discrepancy by assumption.
In a simple linear shear model, the transverse force resultant is , with effective beam shear rigidity . Here is the shear modulus, the material area, and a section correction coefficient. Stipulating , and gives and . The correction coefficient accounts for using a reduced section model; it is not universally fixed at .
A physical test must measure both the centreline shape and section orientation, for example by tracking markers during loading. Shape alone determines but cannot independently determine without section-rotation information or an additional mechanical model. The comparison also requires compatible spatial resolution and angular measurement calibration.
Beam shear correction coefficient 2026-11-05
The beam shear correction coefficient adjusts a reduced beam model's shear response for the nonuniform shear stress over a material section. With shear modulus , area , transverse force resultant and generalized beam shear angle ,where is effective beam shear rigidity. Bower's primary account calls this the Timoshenko shear coefficient and explains that its value depends on geometry, Poisson's ratio and how the approximate theory is matched to the underlying solid.[ref]
Applied Mechanics of Solids by A. F. Bower. §8.7.2, Timoshenko force relation and following shear-coefficient paragraph
An original energy-matching derivation makes the correction precise for one approximation. Assume uniform and a chosen shear-stress field with resultant . The shear elastic energy per unit beam length and its reduced representation areThusThe Cauchy-Schwarz inequality gives , hence for this definition. Equality requires uniform stress. This bound belongs to the stated energy-matching definition rather than every convention called a shear correction coefficient.
For the parabolic rectangular stress approximation used in effective beam shear rigidity, the squared-stress integral is , giving . Choose , and . Then and radians. Omitting the correction gives , underestimating this generalized shear angle by one sixth.
The generalized angle also differs from the peak local shear strain. Under the same parabolic approximation, peak stress is , giving peak strain . The values describe different reductions of the same chosen stress field. Identifying from a bending test therefore requires the section model and displacement readout, not merely a material modulus. For a three-point bending test, the shear deflection contribution varies as , whereas bending varies as ; a span comparison can help separate them.