Plastic hinge of reinforced concrete beam based on fiber element model

Plastic hinge can be used easily to optimize the reinforced concrete structures, but compared with fiber element model used widely in general FEA software, it cannot present accurate solutions for some complex problems. In order to propose visualized results of structural damage for fiber element method, numerical method is used to develop criterions for plastic hinge. Numerical results show that compared with yield point of tension steel and stiffness degradation of section, compression damage of concrete can be easily used as the best criteria, and the proper values is also proposed. With this method, engineers can master the macro damage of structures in fiber element method.