Shear stiffness — where it appears
Named by 2 essays across 2 fields — each of them below, with the objects they name alongside it.
The floor is a beam lying down
A floor plate spans horizontally between the walls that resist a lateral load, carries a distributed inertia load, and has chords, a web and a span-to-depth ratio like any other beam. Its stiffness decides whether the walls share the load by their stiffness or by the area of floor nearest them — and the familiar tributary answer turns out to be neither limit.
The column made of two columns
A solid column buckles when its bending stiffness runs out. A laced one has a second way to go — the lattice shears, the chords stay straight — and the two flexibilities add rather than the two stiffnesses. A battened column reaches 23% of its own Euler load and behaves as though its slenderness were twice what it is.
Named alongside it
The objects these essays reach for when they reach for this one.
Shear deflectionAccidental eccentricityBattenBucklingBuilt up columnCentre of rigidityChordChord forceCollectorDeep beamDiaphragmEffective slenderness