In engineering, shear strength is the strength of a material or component against the type of yield or structural failure when the material or component fails in shear. A shear load is a force that tends to produce a sliding failure on a material along a plane that is parallel to the direction of the force. When a paper is cut with scissors, the paper fails in shear.
Mam Tor road destroyed by subsidence and shear, near Castleton, Derbyshire.
Structural integrity and failure
Structural integrity and failure is an aspect of engineering that deals with the ability of a structure to support a designed structural load without breaking and includes the study of past structural failures in order to prevent failures in future designs.
Collapsed barn at Hörsne, Gotland, Sweden
The Pyramid at Meidum was the second built by the Egyptians around 2600 BC. It suffered from many structural defects, causing it to collapse during construction and leaving the inner core standing in a pile of rubble, which provided one of the earliest known lessons in large-scale building.
Building collapse due to snow weight
The Dee bridge after its collapse