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Ceneral

The shear area is a term to deal with shear deIormations in beams. In relatively deep beams
(span:depth greater than 3) the shear stresses are likely to be high and the resulting deIlection
due to shear may not be negligible. The accuracy oI the shear stress results in that case
depend on the cross section oI the beam in question, since the proIile oI the shear stress will
change Ior each section. The shear area term is able to take this into account where necessary,
hence:

Rectangular section As 5A/6
Solid circular section As 9A/10
Thin walled hollow circular section As A/2
I-beam (along web direction) As A(web)
I-beam (along Ilange direction) As A(Ilanges)
No shear deIormation As 1000A

Aote: If the shear area(s) is(are) set to zero, mechanisms may occur.


The deIlection due to shear will usually be negligible in metal beams unless the span:depth
ratio is extremely small. In wood beams, because the value oI G compared with E is smaller,
deIlection due to shear is much more important.


Example

The equation Ior the central deIlection oI a simply supported rectangular cross section beam
subjected to a uniIormly distributed load (q) is

5qL
4
48 ` a ` EI
v ------- ` ( 1 + ------------------- )
384EI 5 ` G ` As ` L
2


in which

v: Central deIlection
q: Force per unit length oI beam
L: Total length oI beam
a: CoeIIicient by which the average shear stress must be multiplied in order to
obtain the shear stress at the centroid oI the cross section (shear coeIIicient)
As: Shear area oI beam
A: Area oI beam

The Iirst term gives the deIlection due to bending (standard engineer's beam theory) whilst
the second term accounts Ior the additional deIlection due to shear deIormation. This
equation and its derivation can be Iound in Gere & Timoshenko: Mechanics oI Materials
(pages 407-414).

You may like to consider a beam oI length, L10, height, h1, ratio oI E/G2.5, a1.5 (Ior
the case oI a rectangular beam) and I/A h/12. The results obtained Irom Lusas will be seen
to be in very good agreement with this equation.


Data Input

A three dimensional beam will require two shear area values, A
sz
and A
sy
. These are the
eIIective shear areas on the local yz plane in the local z and y directions respectively.

Because the same geometric property Iorm is used to deIine both two and three dimensional
beam geometric properties, care should be taken when deIining the shear area Ior two
dimensional beams to input the required value into the correct Iield.