Hysteretic beam element with degrading smooth models

This work presents the development of a hysteretic beam element in the context of the finite element method, that is suitable for the inelastic dynamic analysis of framed structures. The formulation proposed is able to capture the main characteristics of hysteresis in structural systems and mainly accounts for stiffness degradation, strength deterioration and pinching phenomena, as well as for non-symmetrical yielding that often characterizes their behavior. The proposed formulation is based on the decoupling of deformations into elastic and hysteretic parts by considering additional hysteretic degrees of freedom, i.e., the hysteretic curvatures and hysteretic axial deformations. The direct stiffness method is employed to establish global matrices and determine the mass and viscous damping, as well as the elastic stiffness and the hysteretic matrix of the structure that corresponds to the newly added hysteretic degrees of freedom. All the governing equations of the structure, namely the linear global equations of motion and the nonlinear evolution equations at elemental level that account for degradations and pinching, are solved simultaneously. This is accomplished by converting the system of equations into state space form and implementing a variable-order solver based on numerical differentiation formulas (NDFs) to determine the solution. Furthermore, hysteretic loops and degradation phenomena are easily controlled by modifying the model parameters at the element level enabling simulations of a more realistic response. Numerical results are presented and compared against experimental results and other finite element codes to validate the proposed formulation and verify its ability to simulate complex hysteretic behavior exhibiting cyclic degradations.