2004 Volume 22 Issue 3 Pages 467-476
This study demonstrates the applicability of advanced criterion to ductile cracking evaluation of practical steel structures under large scale cyclic loading. This advanced ductile cracking criterion is based on the effective damage concept for ductile cracking proposed by authors in the previous report 1, of which applicability has been fundamentally verified by means of small scale specimens extracted from steel plate. The main concern is an application of this proposed criterion to welded structures with practical scale. The specimens modeled beam-to-column connection of steel peer, in which connection is strength overmatched joint, were tested in cyclic loading, and analyzed by FE-method employed combined hardening material models of both base steel and weld metal. The ductile cracking occurred from the surface of stress-strain concentration area, that is of weld metal on web plate thickness around connection. The critical value for ductile cracking in beam-to-column specimen evaluated with the accumulation of effective plastic strain at the position where ductile cracking occurred was found to be well agreement with that obtained by using small scale tensile specimen. Accordingly, the advanced criterion could be applied to evaluation of structural integrity with respect to ductile cracking under large scale seismic loading, and to structural design to prevent ductile cracking in welded structures as well.
