Ensuring best fixings practice
Creep and construction fixings.
An article for the CFA website
by Mark Salmon B Sc
General Manager CFA
In some of our Guidance Notes we refer to
the fact that some fixings – notably plastic
anchors - are affected by creep and
(occasionally) require different treatment
as a result. This article explains this
phenomenon for those who are interested.
For those who are not - read no further.
No anchors sold by Full Members of the
CFA suffer from creep if selected and
installed correctly.
So, what is creep?
Wikepedia puts it this way.
<< Creep is the tendency of a solid
material to move slowly or deform
permanently under the influence of
stresses. It occurs as a result of long term
exposure to high levels of stress that are
below the yield strength of the material.
Unlike brittle fracture, creep deformation
does not occur suddenly upon the
application of stress. Instead, strain
accumulates as a result of long-term
stress. Creep is a "time-dependent"
deformation. >>
One way in which this phenomenon can
be appreciated, as far as it affects
construction fixings such as plastic
anchors, is to point out that an anchor
might successfully withstand a certain load
in a short term test but may fail at a
significantly lower load if that lower load
were applied over the long term.
When manufacturers of construction
fixings test anchors to determine the
quoted recommended loads they usually
carry out a large series of tests to
determine the failure load. These tests
can be expected to produce failure load
results with a scatter which may be large
or small dependent on the type and design
of fixing. To take account of this scatter a
statistical analysis is carried out to
determine the “Characteristic resistance”*
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which is then divided by a “Partial safety
factor”* to produce the “Design
resistance”*, from which a Recommended
Resistance* can be derived using another
partial safety factor.
The characteristic resistance is a value
which ensures that most anchors, say
95% of those tested, when tested to the
same method, will reach a value at least
as high as the characteristic resistance
value. Anchors with poor creep
resistance, may fail in the long term if
loaded to a load that other anchors would
support quite happily. For this reason
anchors with poor creep resistance need
higher than usual safety factors so that the
recommended load quoted by the
manufacturer is sufficiently low so as to
ensure that creep failure does not occur.
There are two materials which are used in
fixings and which are known to suffer from
creep in varying degrees. Plastics and
resins.
Plastic anchors and creep
“Plastic” is a very broad grouping of
materials. Years of research has
determined that the type of plastic most
suitable for use in fixings is Nylon and
within the family of nylon materials PA6
has been identified as exhibiting the best
overall characteristics. Even PA6 suffers
from creep, so higher than normal safety
factors are applied to the characteristic
resistance to determine the recommended
resistance, typically 5:1. Some
manufacturers apply a factor of 7:1 to the
mean ultimate resistance. Nylon anchors
which have been awarded a European
Technical Approval (ETA) will have been
subject to specific sustained load tests
designed to ensure that the design
resistance is not affected by creep.
When anchors are to be used on site in
base materials for which there are no
published recommended loads, e.g. in
masonry, on-site testing can be carried out
to determine the “allowable resistance”.
When this is done for nylon anchors higher
safety factors need to be employed than
would be the case with anchors made
from other materials.
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 Ensuring best fixings practice
Suitable safety factors are recommended
by the Construction Fixings Association
and are published in their Guidance Note:
Procedure for site testing construction
Fixings - 2012. Different (lower) factors are
recommended for anchors used in
relatively temporary applications such as
scaffolding and steeplejacking (but the
factors for nylon anchors are still higher
than for anchors made of other materials).
Resin anchors and creep
Resin anchors are another material with
plastic rather than elastic characteristics
which, as a result might suffer from creep.
There are many different types of resin
and within those types formulations vary
significantly. Again some resin materials
exhibit better creep resistance than others.
As resin anchor systems are frequently
used for safety critical applications only
anchors with an ETA should be used. The
test and assessment regime used for resin
anchors to attain an ETA includes a
sustained load test which keeps the
recommended resistance well below any
load at which creep might be an issue. For
most resin anchors there is no significant
increase in the effective safety factor
between the characteristic and design
resistances. In other words the effect is
much less marked than with plastic
anchors. It is still important that resin
anchors are installed correctly to ensure
that the stress levels within the anchorage
do not approach those at which creep
might occur. This means that holes should
be thoroughly cleaned (using a brush as
well as a blowout pump) and resin
materials allowed to cure for the full
recommended curing time before being
tightened, tested or loaded.
Creep of materials is increased by higher
service temperatures so the service
temperature limits of nylon anchors and
resin bonding materials, as published by
the manufacturer or stated in the ETA,
should be respected.
Concrete and creep
Another material that influences the fixing
and suffers from a form of creep is
concrete.
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When concrete is subject to a significant
stress the concrete local to that stress
reacts to it by letting the stress dissipate
from the point of high stress into adjacent
areas. With a fixing, such as an expansion
anchor, that high stress occurs local to the
expansion components and increases as
the tension in the anchor bolt increases.
As the stress in the concrete local to the
fixing reduces with time – especially in the
first few hours after installation - so does
the tension in the bolt and the resulting
clamping force through the fixture. Of
course this effect is of a different nature to
the effect of creep in plastics and resins
but it can none the less result in a
significant reduction in clamping force over
the life of a building. Manufacturers’
recommended tightening torques are
usually set at a level to take this into
account. In other words the initial torque
will induce a clamping force high enough
to ensure that the fixture is still clamped
after a service life of, say, 50 years. The
stress pattern surrounding a resin anchor
in concrete may be different to that
surrounding an expansion anchor but
there will be stresses due to the imposed
load and the result, known as load
relaxation, will still occur. These effects
are discussed in other articles published in
Fastener and Fixing magazine in editions
67 (Tightening torques explained. January
2011.) and 69 (Load relaxation and site
testing. May 2011.). These can be found
on the CFA website at www.the-cfa.co.uk
in the section “Guidance Notes and
downloads” and also at
www.fastenersandfixings.com.
Mark Salmon
31 January 2013.
* For definitions of these and other terms used
in relation to construction fixings see the
Guidance Note: Anchor terminology and
notation, also downloadable free from the
Guidance Notes and downloads section of the
website.
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