Shear modulus

Last updated
Shear modulus
Common symbols
G, S
SI unit pascal
Derivations from
other quantities
G = τ / γ G = E / 2(1+n)
Shear strain Shear scherung.svg
Shear strain




= shear stress
is the force which acts
is the area on which the force acts
= shear strain. In engineering , elsewhere
is the transverse displacement
is the initial length

The derived SI unit of shear modulus is the pascal (Pa), although it is usually expressed in gigapascals (GPa) or in thousands of pounds per square inch (ksi). Its dimensional form is M1L−1T−2, replacing force by mass times acceleration.


MaterialTypical values for
shear modulus (GPa)
(at room temperature)
Diamond [2] 478.0
Steel [3] 79.3
Iron [4] 52.5
Copper [5] 44.7
Titanium [3] 41.4
Glass [3] 26.2
Aluminium [3] 25.5
Polyethylene [3] 0.117
Rubber [6] 0.0006


The shear modulus is concerned with the deformation of a solid when it experiences a force parallel to one of its surfaces while its opposite face experiences an opposing force (such as friction). In the case of an object shaped like a rectangular prism, it will deform into a parallelepiped. Anisotropic materials such as wood, paper and also essentially all single crystals exhibit differing material response to stress or strain when tested in different directions. In this case, one may need to use the full tensor-expression of the elastic constants, rather than a single scalar value.


Shear waves

Influences of selected glass component additions on the shear modulus of a specific base glass. SpiderGraph ShearModulus.GIF

In homogeneous and isotropic solids, there are two kinds of waves, pressure waves and shear waves. The velocity of a shear wave, is controlled by the shear modulus,


G is the shear modulus
is the solid's density.

Shear modulus of metals

Shear modulus of copper as a function of temperature. The experimental data are shown with colored symbols. CuShearMTS.svg



  1. the MTS shear modulus model developed by [12] and used in conjunction with the Mechanical Threshold Stress (MTS) plastic flow stress model. [13] [14]
  2. the Steinberg-Cochran-Guinan (SCG) shear modulus model developed by [15] and used in conjunction with the Steinberg-Cochran-Guinan-Lund (SCGL) flow stress model.
  3. the Nadal and LePoac (NP) shear modulus model [10] that uses Lindemann theory to determine the temperature dependence and the SCG model for pressure dependence of the shear modulus.

MTS model

The MTS shear modulus model has the form:

where is the shear modulus at , and and are material constants.

SCG model



NP model



and μ0 is the shear modulus at absolute zero and ambient pressure, ζ is a material parameter, m is the atomic mass, and f is the Lindemann constant.

Shear relaxation modulus

The shear relaxation modulus is the time-dependent generalization of the shear modulus [16] :


See also

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  1. IUPAC , Compendium of Chemical Terminology , 2nd ed. (the "Gold Book") (1997). Online corrected version:  (2006) " shear modulus, G ". doi : 10.1351/goldbook.S05635
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  5. Material properties
  7. [Landau LD, Lifshitz EM. Theory of Elasticity, vol. 7. Course of Theoretical Physics. (2nd Ed) Pergamon: Oxford 1970 p13]
  8. Shear modulus calculation of glasses
  9. Overton, W.; Gaffney, John (1955). "Temperature Variation of the Elastic Constants of Cubic Elements. I. Copper". Physical Review. 98 (4): 969. Bibcode:1955PhRv...98..969O. doi:10.1103/PhysRev.98.969.
  10. 1 2 Nadal, Marie-Hélène; Le Poac, Philippe (2003). "Continuous model for the shear modulus as a function of pressure and temperature up to the melting point: Analysis and ultrasonic validation". Journal of Applied Physics. 93 (5): 2472. Bibcode:2003JAP....93.2472N. doi:10.1063/1.1539913.
  12. Varshni, Y. (1970). "Temperature Dependence of the Elastic Constants". Physical Review B. 2 (10): 3952–3958. Bibcode:1970PhRvB...2.3952V. doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.2.3952.
  13. Chen, Shuh Rong; Gray, George T. (1996). "Constitutive behavior of tantalum and tantalum-tungsten alloys" (PDF). Metallurgical and Materials Transactions A. 27 (10): 2994. Bibcode:1996MMTA...27.2994C. doi:10.1007/BF02663849.
  14. Goto, D. M.; Garrett, R. K.; Bingert, J. F.; Chen, S. R.; Gray, G. T. (2000). "The mechanical threshold stress constitutive-strength model description of HY-100 steel". Metallurgical and Materials Transactions A. 31 (8): 1985–1996. doi:10.1007/s11661-000-0226-8.
  16. Rubinstein, Michael, 1956 December 20- (2003). Polymer physics. Colby, Ralph H. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 284. ISBN   019852059X. OCLC   50339757.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
Conversion formulae

There are two valid solutions.
The plus sign leads to .

The minus sign leads to .
Cannot be used when