A FIBER BEAM-COLUMN ELEMENT FOR FRAME ANALYSIS

This paper presents a fiber beam-column element for nonlinear analysis of frames which considers both geometric and material nonlinearities. Geometric nonlinearities are captured using stability functions derived from the exact solution of a beam-column under axial force and bending moments. Material nonlinearities are considered by tracing the uniaxial stress-strain relationship of fiber on cross section. Numerical examples are presented to verify the accuracy and efficiency of the proposed element. Using one element per member in structure modeling, the nonlinear responses predicted by the proposed element compare well with those given by commercial finite element packages and other available results.