Satisfactory behaviour of structures under severe seismic loading is usually largely dependent on the ability of key components to undergo significant inelastic deformations. In the case of concentrically braced frames, the critical elements are the diagonal bracing members which are expected to experience repeated cycles involving yielding in tension and member buckling in compression. The performance of bracing members depends on various factors, including local slenderness, global slenderness, material yield strength, section shape and end restraint [1]. Due to the difficulty in modelling the non-linearity and cyclic plasticity accurately, numerous experimental studies have been carried out to study the cyclic inelastic behaviour of bracing members.The interest of researchers in the early days was primarily in the load-displacement hysteretic response of the braces. Models were proposed to predict residual elongation at zero load, loss of compressive strength, the area under the hysteresis loops which represents the amount of energy dissipation, and other key characteristics of the hysteresis loops [2][3][4][5]. It was generally concluded [4,5] that global slenderness was the most important parameter influencing the hysteretic behaviour of braces. Slender members lost compressive resistance more rapidly than stocky members, resulting in fewer inelastic response cycles and lower amount of energy dissipation.More recently, attention has shifted to examination of the factors influencing the fracture life of bracing members. Through experimental testing, both global and local slenderness were found to be important factors in determining fracture life. Tang and Goel [6] proposed one of the first empirical equations for predicting the fracture life of bracing members, which suggests that fracture life is proportional to both the aspect ratio of the cross-section and the global member slenderness but inversely proportional to the square of the local slenderness. However, the validity of this prediction method is limited to bracing members in inverted V braced frames. Further developments [7][8][9] in the prediction of fracture life of brace members have utilised this basic proposed equation and generalised the applicability to bracing members in other concentrically braced frame configurations.A more general relationship was established following a comprehensive survey of the experimental cyclic behaviour of steel bracing members conducted by Tremblay [7], in which buckling resistance, post-buckling resistance in compression, tensile resistance, fracture life and a number of other properties from about 50 members were assessed. Shaback and Brown [8] carried out tests on square hollow section bracing members and calibrated a more sophisticated expression of fracture life, defined as Revised Manuscript Click here to view linked References 2 the weighted sum of normalised compressive and tensile deformation, in terms of global slenderness, local slenderness, aspect ratio of the cross-section and material yield strengt...

a b s t r a c tCyclic material tests in the low and extremely low cycle fatigue regime were carried out to study the properties of structural carbon steel and stainless steel. A total of 62 experiments were performed in cyclic axial and bending configurations, with strain amplitudes up to ±15%. Materials from hot-rolled carbon steel (S355J2H), cold-formed carbon steel (S235JRH) and cold-formed austenitic stainless steel (EN 1.4301 and EN 1.4307) structural sections were tested and the results were compared. The strain-life data from the axial tests were used to derive suitable Coffin-Manson parameters for the three materials; two further extremely low cycle fatigue life prediction models were also considered. The results revealed that the three materials exhibit similar strain-life relationships despite significantly different elongations at fracture measured in monotonic tensile tests. The hysteretic responses of the materials at different strain amplitudes were used to calibrate a combined isotropic/kinematic cyclic material hardening model which can be incorporated into numerical models of structural members. The stainless steel specimens displayed significantly greater levels of cyclic hardening than the corresponding carbon steel samples. A relationship between the results obtained from axial and bending test arrangements was established through consideration of energy dissipation, enabling strain-life models to be derived from either means of testing.

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