Ductility demanded of members in steel moment frames sustaining beam-hinging mechanism

This paper presents a seismic design procedure to estimate the ductility demanded of beams in strong column - weak beam steel frames. Critical parameters that control the earthquake response of steel frames are characterized and incorporated into the equivalent SDOF representation. Maximum and cumulative plastic rotations induced into beam-ends are derived in explicit forms as functions of these parameters, and accuracy of the estimated rotations is demonstrated through the comparison with numerical results.