Determination of Shear Center of Arbitrary Cross-Section

In structural analysis, it is often necessary to determine the geometrical properties of cross section. The location of the shear center is greater importance for an arbitrary cross section. In this study, the problems of coupled shearing and torsional were analyzed by using the finite element method. Namely, the simultaneous equations with respect to the warping, shear deflection, angle of torsion and Lagrange’s multipliers are derived by finite element approximation. Solving them numerically, the matrix of the shearing rigidity and torsional rigidity is obtained. This matrix indicates the coupled shearing and torsional deflection. The shear center can be obtained determining the coordinate axes so as to eliminate the non-diagonal terms. Several numerical examples are performed and show that the present method gives excellent results for an arbitrary cross section.