Constitutive model for full-range elasto-plastic behavior of structural steels with yield plateau: Calibration and validation

• A simplified calibration procedure for the proposed model is established.
• This procedure mainly utilizes monotonic tension coupon test result.
• Additional empirical assumptions based on consistency equations are presented.
• The calibrated model is validated with numerous experiments.

With the formulation and implementation of a new constitutive model for full-range elasto-plastic behavior of structural steels with yield plateau being presented in a companion paper, this paper is concerned with the detailed calibration methods of material dependent parameters incorporated in that model. The restriction equations extracted from the consistency condition in the formulation together with some empirical assumptions give rise to a very concise technique to evaluate the model parameters using only tensile coupon test results. After calibration, the constitutive model is used to predict the cyclic behavior of materials, members, connections and frames made of structural steels with yield plateau. The close fit between the experimental results and simulated ones validates the accuracy of the constitutive model. The work in this paper demonstrates further the advantages and efficiency of the proposed constitutive model, especially in the absence of cyclic coupon test results.