ABSTRACT
Although the plastic deformations of members are considered the main source of seismic input energy dissipation, the member ductility has not been completely quantified as well as many other characteristics of their structural response. This remark is valid even for the I-section members, which are used mostly in seismic resistant structures, in spite of quite a large amount of experimental tests and theoretical results. It is probably due to the complexity of analysing the inelastic behaviour, when plastic-local buckling, lateraltorsional buckling, fractures due to high velocity or accumulation of plastic deformations play an important role. Only recently, the problem of evaluating the ductility became a primary interest, as testified by numerous published papers dealing with different aspects. As it is mentioned in Section 6.3.1, the monotonic and static behaviour is studied as a first step and the effects of dynamic behaviour are analysed in a second step.
