Safety Concepts for Ductility of Joints ir. C.M. Steenhuis

Nowadays, in design standards, ductility requirements for joints are formulated in terms of deemed-to-satisfy rules, i.e. provided that certain design requirements are met, the joint may be assumed to behave sufficiently ductile to ensure a safe structural behaviour. Higher strength steels in general possess a lower ductility compared to normal steels. Consequently, in structures made of higher strength steels, the ductility of the joints connecting the members becomes a design issue. In this paper, preliminary results are presented of a research carried out in Eindhoven on the relation between the ductility of joints in steel structures and the frame reliability. Different safety concepts are treated for the ductility problem of joints. A procedure is given for a rational treatment of the ductility problem in relation to the reliability of the frame. The paper ends with conclusions and recommendations for further research