ABSTRACT
An elastic-plastic analytical model is developed for the analysis of the hysteretic behaviour of pinned tubular struts with initial imperfections. Elastic deflection is computed considering geometric nonlinearity. Plastic deformations of the plastic hinge at mid-span and of the partly plastic zone around it are included. Section properties and plasticity conditions are derived for the tubular section with kinematic strain hardening. The results of the analysis using this model are compared with experimental data. The comparison shows a better agreement than elastic-perfectly plastic point hinge models. The analysis shows that the effect of the deformations of the partly plastic zone is more significant than those of the plastic hinge in the response of the strut.
