Strength and ductility design of flexural members as per both generations of Eurocode 2 Part 1-1

Prescriptive methods of design generally provide detailed guidance for strength and serviceability design, but flexural members should also have sufficient ductility to perform satisfactorily during earthquakes. Evaluation of ductility is generally not performed in routine design calculations, which mostly deal only with strength and serviceability. In the present work an attempt was made to simultaneously address the properties of strength and ductility of flexural members to enhance the performance of sections up to and beyond design loads. Strain ductility, curvature ductility and section deformations were evaluated under different failure conditions and compared with prescribed values as per different performance-based limit states to assess the damage condition of the sections. The results indicate that the design provisions of BS EN 1992-1-1:2004 result in higher ductility of sections, which require high plastic rotations that might cause damage beyond the collapse prevention level of performance-based design. Another aim of the work was to assess the impact of the second generation of the code (BS EN 1992-1-1:2023) on strength and ductility design of flexural members. The results indicate that the design provisions of the second-generation code result in higher values of flexural strength and ductility than the first-generation code.