Bearing Stress Calculator
Bearing (contact) stress for bolts, pins, rivets, bushings and clevis joints — force over projected area — with the safety factor and a pass/fail check against the material allowable.
What Is Bearing Stress?
Bearing stress (also called bearing pressure) is the contact stress where a bolt, pin, rivet or shaft pushes against the side of its hole or bushing. It is the force divided by the projected contact area — the flat rectangle the pin presses on, not the curved hole surface:
Here d is the pin or bolt diameter and t is the plate thickness, so the projected area is simply d × t. Use it whenever a fastener transfers load by pushing on a hole: clevis joints, lugs, brackets, bushings and pinned connections.
Single vs Double Shear
In a single-shear joint the load bears on one face. In a double-shear (clevis) joint the pin is supported on both sides and the load splits between two bearing faces, so each face carries roughly half the force. The calculator handles both with a toggle.
Bearing Is Only One of the Checks
A pinned or bolted connection can fail four ways, and bearing is just one of them:
| Failure mode | What to check |
|---|---|
| Bearing | Pin crushing the hole (this calculator) |
| Shear | Pin or bolt shearing across its section |
| Tension | Net section of the plate pulling apart |
| Tear-out | Material behind the hole shearing to the edge |
Always run all four for a real connection — the smallest capacity governs.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why projected area instead of the hole area?
Contact pressure on a curved surface is hard to integrate, so engineering practice uses the projected rectangle (diameter times thickness). It is conservative and standard in every code.
What allowable should I use?
This tool compares against the material yield as a baseline. Bolted-joint codes such as AISC allow higher bearing values (often well above yield) because local hole deformation is acceptable — use the allowable your code specifies.
Is bearing stress the same as bearing capacity?
No. This is mechanical bearing stress for machine parts. Soil bearing capacity, for footings and foundations, is a separate geotechnical calculation.
Related calculators
- Mechanical Stress Calculator — axial, bending, shear, bearing and torsional stress in one tool.
- Factor of Safety Calculator — turn the margin into a design decision.
- Mechanical Force Calculator — the force that drives the bearing load.
- Torque Calculator — for shafts and bolt preload.
- More engineering tools — bolt, rivet and pin-shear calculators coming to the library.