A novel method for predicting damage accumulation in seismically deformed steel

During a severe earthquake, most moment-resisting steel framed structures are designed and detailed to resist the earthquake through a combination of strength and damage, where the damage occurs in specific, controlled locations in the beams. Contrary to prior opinion and practice, the Northridge and Kobe earthquakes of the mid 1990s showed that the ability of steel structures to deliver this behaviour is not a given, but is dependant on careful design and detailing, and on how the material behaves under the accumulation of damage.This paper focuses on the latter topic and develops a simple and powerful damage parameter to predict failure in the flange of a beam undergoing inelastic action under any loading history. This can be used to illustrate the influence of different loading regimes and to determine element failure in a finite element model.