The maximum shear stress distribution in a stiffening flat attached to a plat undergoing a single tensile force has been investigated by photoelastic method. In the experiments a photoelastic model, as shown in Fig. 1, has been studied in the fields of a polariscope, as shown in Fig. 2. Fig. 3 shows the isoclinics and Fig. 4 and 5 are stress trajectories of the principal stresses and maximum shear stresses, respectively. Fig. 6 is the isochromatics in light field. The maximum shear stress at each point in the stiffener were determined from the isochromatics in both of light field of light field and dark field. Then the maximum shear stresses were divided by the average shear stress in the model, to obtain the ratio ${ au}max/{ au}av$ at each point. Finaly the variations of the ratio ${ au}max/{ au}av$ along the horizontal and vertical lines in the stiffener have been plotted, as shown in Fig. 7 and 8. The conclusions reached in this investigation are as follows: (1) The shear stresses transmitted to the stiffener through the juncture are concentrated on the end portions. (2) The maximum shear stress at the ends of the stiffener reaches to about 4 times of average shear stress. (3) The irregularities in the stress distribution are restricted in the end portions of the stiffener.