Modified tangent modulus approach, a contribution to plastic hinge analysis

A fundamental aim of developing and applying nonlinear analysis is to improve the quality of design by providing the engineer with a more reliable prediction of the performance of a structural system that is under design or investigation. This paper describes a modification to the second-order inelastic hinge method that can produce the accuracy of more sophisticated plastic zone methods in the analysis of in-plane behavior of compact doubly symmetric sections. As a basis for comparison, results are provided for an established set of benchmark problems.