Limit State Material: NOT for shear critical columns

[BIal]

Hello!
I was wondering if I could use the PinchingLimitStateMaterial in a non-conventional way. Can I assign a PinchingLimitStateMaterial to a spring that is located nowhere near the element in which I am monitoring the drifts? For example:

http://imgur.com/SW4cqtZ

Here is a piece of code I was trying to use. This doesn't work. The analysis fails even for gravity loading. Do you have any idea?

model BasicBuilder -ndm 2 -ndf 3

node 1 0.0 0.0
node 2 0.0 1000.0
node 3 0.0 2000.0
node 4 300.0 1000.0
node 5 300.0 1000.0
node 6 1300.0 1000.0

geomTransf Linear 1

#vertical elements

#element elasticBeamColumn $eleTag $iNode $jNode $A $E $Iz $transfTag <-mass $massDens> <-cMass>
element elasticBeamColumn 1 1 2 [expr 550.0*550.0] 35000.0 [expr 550.0*550.0*550.0*550.0/12] 1
element elasticBeamColumn 2 2 3 [expr 550.0*550.0] 35000.0 [expr 550.0*550.0*550.0*550.0/12] 1


# horizontal elements
element elasticBeamColumn 3 2 4 [expr 550.0*550.0] 35000.0 [expr 550.0*550.0*550.0*550.0/12] 1
element elasticBeamColumn 4 5 6 [expr 550.0*500.0] 35000.0 [expr 550.0*550.0*550.0*550.0/12] 1

#limitCurve RotationShearCurve $crvTag $eleTag $ndI $ndJ $rotAxis $Vn $Vr $Kdeg $rotLim
limitCurve RotationShearCurve 60 2 3 2 3 60000000.0 -1 -10.0 0.1

#uniaxialMaterial PinchingLimitStateMaterial $matTag $nodeT $nodeB $driftAxis $Kelas $crvTyp $crvTag $YpinchUPN $YpinchRPN $XpinchRPN $YpinchUNP $YpinchRNP $XpinchRNP $dmgStrsLimE $dmgDispMax $dmgE1 $dmgE2 $dmgE3 $dmgE4 $dmgELim $dmgR1 $dmgR2 $dmgR3 $dmgR4 $dmgRLim $dmgRCyc $dmgS1 $dmgS2 $dmgS3 $dmgS4 $dmgSLim $dmgSCyc
uniaxialMaterial PinchingLimitStateMaterial 511 3 2 1 500000000000000000000.0 2 60 0.3 0.2 0.0 0.3 0.2 0.0 0.0 1.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.3

element zeroLength 88 4 5 -mat 511 -dir 3

fix 1 1 1 1

... the rest is just the analysis and recorders

[selimgunay]

It does not work because nodes 4 and 5 are not connected for the axial and horizontal dof. You need to add a constraint as follows

equalDOF 4 5 1 2;

http://opensees.berkeley.edu/wiki/index ... OF_command

[BIal]

Thank you very much for your reply. I added the equalDOF line and it works now.