1.

Introduction
The purpose of this exercise was to analyse the nonlinear response of a single span statically determinate beam. This involved determining the position and order of occurrence of plastic hinges and their influence on the response of the structure when undertaking an incremental nonlinear analysis using the program MASTAN. The structure in question can be seen below in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Single Span Statically Determinate Beam A series of modifications were carried out on this structure to determine the load factor, position of the plastic hinges, the plastic modulus as well as corresponding bending moment diagrams and moment capacities for each of the cases considered. Then finally the virtual work method was used to calculate the collapse load of the structure.

2. Procedure
2.1 Original Structure
Firstly the geometric and elemental properties for the structural arrangement for the 305x102x33 UB shown in Figure 1 were entered into MASTAN. The properties of the section which were entered are shown below. Area = 0.00418 m2 Izz= 0.00006490 m4 Zzz= 0.00048 m3 E= 200,000 Mpa y = 250 Mpa Iyy = 0 J=0 Zyy = infinity Ayy = infinity

Azz = infinity The conditions for the built in supports at node A and node D were then inputted followed by the 1kN loads at Nodes B and C. MASTAN was then used to analyse the structure and gain results for a 1st order elastic analysis. The deflected shape gained from this analysis is shown below.

Figure 2: Deflected Shape for original structure This deflected shape was considered to be ok based upon our knowledge of how such a structure is likely to behave when applied to these types on loads. The bending moment diagram for the structural system can be seen in the figure below.

Figure 3: Bending Moment Diagram for original structure

The load factor was then determined through manipulating the following equation: Mp = S y Where S is the plastic section modulus. The load factor 1 at node A where the first plastic hinge occurs was calculated to be 112.89, intermediate steps of this calculation can be found in Appendix A. The bending moment diagram scaled up by this load factor can be seen in Figure 4 below.

Figure 4: Bending moment diagram scaled up by 1

The calculated values for the remaining moment capacities at the remaining nodes can be seen in the following table. Node B C D Remaining Moment Capacity (kNm) 88.28 49.44 42.33

2.2 First Structural Modification

The structure was then modified by releasing the rotational constraint at the position of the first plastic hinge at node A, this was followed by running an elastic analysis on this structure. The bending moment for this newly modified structure can be seen in Figure 5 below.

Figure 5: Bending moment diagram for first structural modification

The increment in the load factor 2 at which the second plastic hinge occurs was then calculated to be 34.73; the intermediate steps in this calculation are expressed in Appendix 1. The bending moment diagram scaled to this increment in the load factor is illustrated below in Figure 6, followed by the bending moment diagram when the second plastic hinge occurs in Figure 7.

Figure 6: Bending moment diagram scaled to increment in load factor

Figure 7: Total bending moment diagram when the second plastic hinge occurs

The total load factor 2 was calculated to be 147.61; steps involved in reaching this number are shown in Appendix A. The remaining moment capacities at nodes B and C are shown below. Node B C Remaining Moment Capacity (kNm) 88.28 90.16

2.3 Second structural Modification

The structure was then modified further by releasing the rotational constraint at the position of the plastic hinge (detailed previously) and a first order elastic analysis was run on the structure. The corresponding bending moment diagram is expressed in Figure 8 below.

Figure 8: Bending moment diagram for second structural modification

The increment in the load factor 3 at which the third plastic hinge occurs was calculated to be 12.33 and this calculation is contained in Appendix A. The bending moment diagram scaled to this increment in load factor can be seen in Figure 9, followed by the total bending moment diagram when the third plastic hinge occurs.

Figure 9: Bending moment diagram scaled to increment in load factor

Figure 10: Total bending moment diagram when the third plastic hinge occurs

The total load factor 3 at which the third plastic hinge occurs (Node D) was then calculated to be 159.95 and this calculation is contained in Appendix A.

2.4 Final Analysis and Virtual Work Principal

MASTAN was then used to again analyse the original structure with the analysis set to a plane frame (x-y) with on this occasion a 1st order inelastic analysis being undertaken. The resulting bending moment diagram is shown in Figure 11 below.

Figure 11: Bending Moment Diagram from inelastic analysis

The deflected shape output from this analysis is illustrated in Figure 12 along with the locations of the plastic hinges. This hinges occur in the same positions as obtained through previous analysis and have very similar values to those calculated previously.

Figure 12: Deflected Shape and plastic hinges

The virtual work method was then used to calculate the collapse load of the structure; 160kNm. This calculation is shown in full in Appendix A.

3. Conclusions
After carrying out the various analytic steps it can be said that the 1st order elastic analysis and the calculations relating to this to acquire values for the load factors and positions of plastic hinges given basically the same values as those obtained from the 1st order inelastic analysis. More specifically this showed that the plastic hinges occurred at Node A, Node C and Node D. A comparison of the values obtained for the load factors for both methods can be seen in the following table. 1st order elastic and hand calcs 112.89 147.61 159.95 1st order inelastic 112.9 147.7 160

1 2 3

These results being essentially the same as well as the positions of the plastic hinges and this was as expected as the 1st order elastic analysis and their corresponding calculations are basically the theory on which the 1st order inelastic analysis is based on when it comes to determining the load factors and positions of plastic hinges.