Shear Failure

shear failure, failure by rupture

Failure in which movement caused by shearing stresses in a soil mass is of sufficient magnitude to destroy or seriously endanger a structure.

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Shear Failure 

(Russian skalyvanie), the destruction of tangentially stressed materials, in which one part of the material is displaced in relation to another part along some plane or surface. In the field of strength of materials this type of failure is given the Russian term srez for most materials. The term skalyvanie is used when the material has a fibrous structure, for instance, wood, and the plane of shear is parallel to the fibers. The term skalyvanie is also sometimes used to indicate the brittle nature of destruction. A distinction is made between shear failure along the fibers and across the fibers. The calculation of shear failure along the grain is of primary importance in the design of joints between wood structural elements.