The Shearing of a Rectangular Block Between Rough Plates

In a recently published paper, W. T. Read gives an approximate solution of a problem in elasticity which occurs in the testing of materials. This is the problem of determining the stresses in a rectangular block when a pair of opposite faces are mutually displaced in the direction of an edge. The conditions are not those of uniform shear, for that would imply shear stresses on the free faces of the block. In the present paper an analytical solution of the same problem is obtained and the results are compared for a particular case. The method used is a particular case of the general method described by G. Pickett.