Plastic Deformation Capacity of Steel Beam-to-Column Connection under Long-duration Earthquake

Ductile fracture is one of the most common failure modes of steel beam-to-column connections in moment resisting frames. Most proposed evaluation methods of the plastic deformation capacity of a beam until ductile fracture are based on steel beam tests, where the material's yield strength/ratio, the beam's moment gradient, and loading history are the most important parameters. It is impossible and unpractical to cover all these parameters in real tests. Therefore, a new attempt to evaluate a beam's plastic deformation capacity through analysis is introduced in this paper. Another important issue is about the loading histories. Recent years, the effect on the structural component under long-duration ground motion has drawn great attentions. Steel beams tends to experience a large number of loading cycles with small amplitudes during long-duration earthquakes. However, current research often focuses on the beam's behavior under standard incremental loading protocols recommended by respective countries. In this paper, the plastic deformation capacity of steel beams subjected to long duration ground motions was evaluated through analytical methodology.