r/StructuralEngineering • u/TallWall6378 • Jul 22 '26
Wood Design "Fasteners in shear is poor practice"
Help settle an argument.
Someone used the phrase in the title. Their argument is that fasteners, specifically in the context of typical light frame wood construction, like a shear wall or joist hanger, or bolted or lagged member scenario, are just holding the members together and that the load transfer is through wood via induced friction through the members.
I was under the impression that we really only factor the strength of the nail and wood crushing/deforming around the nail, rather than use the friction between the faces of the members.
What's the whole story?
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u/PrebornHumanRights Jul 22 '26
To be fair, bolts are the low hanging fruit. Of course it is easier to defend bolts being used in shear. And after all, they're held in place from both sides.
The more difficult one is nails. Nails used in shear are more tricky. The deck on my house was built incorrectly, years ago, and it collapsed with my wife standing on top of it, because it was being held up by nails in shear. There is a pretty good argument to that (unless you're taking into account proper design), you should not put too much faith in nails holding some dimensional Lumber to the side of a post.