Energy Dissipation in Indeterminate Steel Beams

The aim of this study is to predict the amount of energy dissipated in a statically indeterminate steel beam due to material hysteresis. The case considered is that of a fixed‐end beam subjected to a pseudorandom cyclic deflection history at its third point. The program to conduct this analysis predicts the load response to any pseudorandom deflection limit history, rather than being limited to the constant limit conditions considered previously by other researchers. Three deflection limit histories are considered. The load‐deformation response is built up from the sectional response, which, in turn, is built up from the material response (i.e. a discrete element approach is implemented). This approach allows an in‐depth assessment of the stress and strain distributions at sections in the critical regions. Numerical integration is used to determine the cumulative area within the load‐deflection hysteresis curves (i.e., the energy dissipated).