Shear may refer to:

Textile production

* Animal shearing, the collection of wool from various species ** Sheep shearing *The removal of

nap A nap is a short period of sleep, typically taken during daytime hours as an adjunct to the usual nocturnal sleep period. Naps are most often taken as a response to drowsiness during waking hours. A nap is a form of biphasic or polyphasic sl ...

during wool cloth production

Science and technology

Engineering

* Shear strength (soil), the shear strength of soil under loading *

Shear line (locksmithing) This is a glossary of locksmithing terms. Glossary References External links {{Locksmithing Locksmithing Locksmithing is the science and art of making and defe ...

, where the inner cylinder ends and the outer cylinder begins in a cylinder lock * Shearing (manufacturing), a metalworking process which cuts stock without the formation of chips or the use of burning or melting * Shear (sheet metal), various tools to shear sheet metal *

Board shear Used extensively in bookbinding, a board shear is a large, hand-operated machine for cutting board or paper. Like scissors, a board shear uses two blades to apply shear stress exceeding the paper's shear strength in order to cut. The stationary ...

, in bookbinding, a tool to cut board or paper * Shear pin, in machinery, such as a plough, designed to shear (break) when a certain force is exceeded, to protect other components of the machine. * Shearing interferometer, in optics, a simple and very common means to check the collimation of beams by observing interference *Shearing in computer graphics, more commonly called screen tearing *

Shear wall In structural engineering, a shear wall is a vertical element of a system that is designed to resist in-plane lateral forces, typically wind and seismic loads. In many jurisdictions, the International Building Code and International Residential Co ...

, a wall composed of braced panels to counter the effects of lateral load acting on a structure *

Shear forming Shear forming, also referred as shear spinning, is similar to metal spinning. In shear spinning the area of the final piece is approximately equal to that of the flat sheet metal blank. The wall thickness is maintained by controlling the gap bet ...

, different from conventional metal spinning in that a reduction of the wall thickness is induced

Mathematics/astronomy

Cosmic shear While the presence of any mass bends the path of light passing near it, this effect rarely produces the giant arcs and multiple images associated with strong gravitational lensing. Most lines of sight in the universe are thoroughly in the weak le ...

, an effect of distortion of image of distant galaxies due to deflection of light by matter, as predicted by general relativity (see also gravitational lens) * Shear mapping, a particular type of mapping in linear algebra, also called ''transvection'' * Shear matrix in geometry, a linear transformation shearing a space

Solid materials

Shear (geology) Boudinaged quartz vein (with strain fringe) showing ''Fault (geology)">sinistral shear sense'', Starlight Pit, Fortnum Gold Mine, Western Australia In geology, shear is the response of a rock to deformation usually by compressive stress and fo ...

, a form of fault in rocks *

Shear stress Shear stress, often denoted by (Greek: tau), is the component of stress coplanar with a material cross section. It arises from the shear force, the component of force vector parallel to the material cross section. ''Normal stress'', on the ot ...

in physics, refers to a stress state that will cause shearing (see verb) when it exceeds a material's shear strength *

Shearing (physics) In continuum mechanics, shearing refers to the occurrence of a shear strain, which is a deformation of a material substance in which parallel internal surfaces slide past one another. It is induced by a shear stress in the material. Shear strai ...

, the deformation of a material substance in which parallel internal surfaces slide past one another * Shear strength, shear strength

Wind/fluids

Simple shear Simple shear is a deformation in which parallel planes in a material remain parallel and maintain a constant distance, while translating relative to each other. In fluid mechanics In fluid mechanics, simple shear is a special case of deformati ...

, a special case of deformation of a fluid * Shear (fluid), in fluid dynamics, refers to the shear stresses and responses there to in fluids * Shear rate, a gradient of velocity in a flowing material *

Shear line (meteorology) Surface weather analysis is a special type of weather map that provides a view of weather elements over a geographical area at a specified time based on information from ground-based weather stations. Weather maps are created by plotting or tra ...

, an area of wind shear * Wind shear, a difference in wind speed or direction between two wind currents in the atmosphere

Surnames

* Shear (surname) * Shearing (surname)

Other

* Shear (comics), a Marvel Comics superhero