Mixed Shear-Flexural (VM) Hinge Element and Its Applications

In the present paper, a mixed, shear-flexural (VM) hinge element, with zero or nonzero length, for using in frames, has been introduced, where shear-flexural interaction has been considered. The element has the capability of modeling flexural yielding, shear yielding and their interaction in frames, subjected to all kinds of monotonic or cyclic loadings. The inelastic shear and flexural deformations and tangential stiffnesses are considered by using the multi-surfaces approach with dissimilar yield surfaces and by a stiffness matrix with nonzero off-diagonal components. A new kinematics hardening rule and, also, a new non-associated flow rule are introduced. The mixed hinge element can be used in the arbitrary location of beam-column elements, where shear effect is significant. The model is examined for some link beams in eccentrically braced steel frames (EBFs) and it is shown that the analytical and experimental results have excellent agreement. Some reduced web section beams are investigated, too. It is shown that the mixed hinge results are in good agreement with the finite element results.