Shear stress in a tapered (non-prismatic) beam

[itsdark]

Hi everyone I am trying to determine the shear stress in a non prismatic beam and was wondering if anyone knew a good place to source some formula or better yet even had some worked examples. Any help would be very much appreciated I have been stuck with this for a few days now.

 

[structSU10]

Do you need to developed a shear force diagram?

the general differential equation for beams can be used, just with MOI as a variable.

If you need shear stress, the general equation for shear stress VQ/Ib can be used, you just have a different I and Q at whatever section cut you are analyzing.

 

[itsdark]

Thanks for you help. Im still struggling to get my head around this, what I have is a beam with a uniform pressure applied over it so I'm not sure in this situation if the bending force and perpandicular component of the shear force would also have to be taken into account. To be honest I really have no idea what I'm doing with this one, it is way out of my area of expertise.

 

[structSU10]

A good reference, if you can get your hands on it, may be AISC design guide 25 on the design of frames with tapered members. It covers completely the design of frames using tapered members. Most of the shear checks follow standard AISC procedures with some slight modifications outlined in the guide.