Plastic hinge length

[Ralazem]

Hello,

For infrmFBPH elements, is the plastic hinge % a percentage of wall height or length? There is nothing in the manual/help centre that identifies this.

[huffte]

When you define the element class, you will see in the required input that the units are indeed given to be '%'.

[Ralazem]

I am aware of that, as you can see from my main post. My question is, is it a % of wall height or % of wall length?

[z.gronti]

Dear Ralazem,

The plastic hinge length is defined as a percentage of the Columns'/walls' height or beams' length.

[Ralazem]

However some of my verification tests produced better results when I took it as a percentage of wall's length

[seismosoft]

Probably by chance. The 16.67% default value for the plastic hinge length of the infrmFBPH element is a very reasonable value and should not be changed, unless there is a strong reason.
Seismosoft Support

[Ralazem]

I am analyzing Old badly designed buildings. I don't think the 16.67% is applicable in this case. Is there any justification for it's usage?

[seismosoft]

The 16.67% value is a reasonable average value for the inelastic force-based plastic hinge element type. Please refer to:
Plastic hinge integration methods for force-based beam–column elements, MH Scott, GL Fenves - Journal of Structural Engineering, 2006 - ascelibrary.org
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