The redder the joint, the more damage it's taken.
There's a damage scale type thing but I believe it's broken atm.
All you need to know is that in essentiality, the total damage a joint can take is determined by the dismemberment threshold. The higher that number is the more damage it takes. So long as the damage caused by all the hits totals up to the dismemberment threshold, the joint will break. That being said, the joints recover decently fast. Not wildly fast, but after 50 frames the damage should be gone.