Enter the average shear stress and the cross-sectional area the force is applied to into the calculator to determine the shear force.

Shear Force Calculator

Use the beam tab for the main search intent. The other tabs handle direct shear stress and quick bolt or pin estimates.

Beam Shear
Direct Shear Stress
Bolt / Pin
Beam Shear
Calculate support reactions, maximum shear force, and shear at a section. For simply supported beams, x and a are measured from the left support. For cantilevers, x is measured from the fixed end.
Used only for the simply supported point load case.
Leave blank if you only want reactions and maximum shear.
Direct Shear Stress
Solve one missing value from shear force, average shear stress, and cross-sectional area using V = Ï„A.
Bolt / Pin Shear Estimate
Estimate nominal single-shear or double-shear capacity per fastener, then estimate how many bolts or pins are needed for a given load.

Shear Force Formula

The following equation is used to calculate the Shear Force.

F_s = \tau \cdot A
  • Where Fs is the shear force (N)
  • Ï„ is the average shear stress (N/m²)
  • A is the cross-sectional area (m²)

To calculate a shear force, multiply the average shear stress by the cross-sectional area.

What is a Shear Force?

Definition:

Shear force is a force that acts parallel (tangential) to a cross-section and tends to cause adjacent parts of a material to slide past one another.

On any cut plane through a body, the internal traction (force per unit area) can be resolved into a normal component (perpendicular to the plane) and a shear component (parallel to the plane). Normal stress is associated with tension/compression (elongation/contraction), while shear stress is associated with sliding/distortion.

How to Calculate Shear Force?

Example Problem:

The following example outlines the steps and information needed to calculate the Shear Force.

First, determine the average shear stress. For this example problem, the average shear stress is measured to be 500 N/m².

Next, determine the cross-sectional area. In this case, the cross-sectional area is measured to be 0.50 m².

Finally, calculate the shear force using the formula above:

Fs = τ × A

Fs = 500 × 0.50

Fs = 250 N