The design of anchor rods has become complex and cumbersome with the

development of the ACI 318 anchoring provisions, originally in the Appendix D of

the ACI 318-11 and earlier, and in the Chapter 17 of the ACI 318-14 and later. This
document covers the required steps in the process of the design of cast-in anchor rods
normally encountered in column base plates.

Anchor rods are usually subjected to a combination of tension and shear forces.
The ACI 318 treats separately tension and shear, and then it combines both effects in
an interaction diagram. Our software ASDIP STEEL will be used to support this
discussion.

Tension anchor bolt design

Let's assume a typical column base plate with anchor rods at the corners. For
compression columns with no moments, the bearing diagram is uniform, as shown in
the left picture below. If we add a small moment, the bearing diagram varies but the
full base plate is still under compression, as shown in the center picture below. In
these two cases there’s no tension in the anchor rods. As the applied moment
increases, only a portion of the plate is under compression and the anchor rods
provide the required tension to maintain the static equilibrium, as shown in the right
picture below.

The calculation of the tension in the anchor rods depends on the strain compatibility
assumption for the base plate. For a discussion of the different theories please refer to
the blog post Base Plate and Anchor Rod Design.

Once the tension force has been calculated, the anchor rods should be checked for the
following failure modes:
  Steel failure - This is a measure of the capacity of the anchor material,
regardless of the anchoring conditions. The calculations are based on the
material properties and the physical dimensions of the anchor. ASDIP
STEEL uses an internal database with the properties of different anchor sizes
and materials.
 Concrete breakout - It assumes a failure forming a concrete cone based on a
prism angle of 35 degrees. This predicts the strength of a group of anchors by
using a basic equation for a single anchor Nb, and multiplied by factors that
account for the number of anchors, edge distance, spacing, eccentricity, etc. It
should be noted that the eccentricity factor was developed for rigid plates, so the
strain compatibility analysis should be used with the ACI 318 anchorage
provisions. The group breakout area may be quite difficult to calculate, since it
depends on the geometric conditions of the support, as shown below.

A further complication arises when the anchor is located less than 1.5 hef from three or
more edges, in which case the effective depth hef needs to be recalculated. ASDIP
STEEL accurately calculates, for any support conditions, the breakout area Anc and
the effective embedment depth hef. It generates a graphic view as shown below.
The calculation of the breakout failure mode is particularly important since a concrete
failure would be non-ductile, and therefore it should be avoided. To prevent this kind
of failure, the ACI allows the use of reinforcing steel across the failure surface. This
anchor reinforcement, however, must be designed and detailed carefully so that the
strength of the rebars can be developed at both sides of the failure surface.

 Pullout strength - It's the load at which crushing of the concrete occurs due to
bearing of the anchor head.
 Concrete side-face blowout - It assumes splitting of the concrete at anchors
loaded in tension that are close to an edge (hef > 2.5 Ca1).

What is the φ-factor for tension anchors?

The ACI 318 anchorage provisions follow the Ultimate Strength Design, therefore the

nominal strengths will be affected by a φ factor in order to be compared to the factored
tension force for anchor bolt design. The φ-factor is affected by the ductility of the
anchorage. If the controlling failure mode is either the steel strength or the anchor
reinforcement strength, then the failure will be ductile. Any concrete failure, either
breakout, pullout or side blowout, will be a brittle failure.

The ACI 318 penalizes brittle failures with a lower φ-factor of 0.70, unless a

supplementary reinforcing is provided, in which case φ is 0.75, except for pullout. For
ductile failures, the φ-factor is 0.75. Unlike the anchor reinforcement, the
supplementary reinforcement does not need to be designed and detailed to take the
full tension load.
How do you calculate the shear in anchor rods?

The lateral forces acting on a structure will produce a horizontal reaction at the
foundation level. For steel frames supported on base plates, a small horizontal force
can be resisted by the friction between the plate and the underlying concrete.
However, as the reaction increases, the friction may not be high enough to counteract
the sliding force.

In this case, the base plate will tend to slide until the shear force is transferred to the
anchor rods bearing laterally against the base plate. Base plates are usually fabricated
with oversize holes to account for small misalignments of the anchor rods at the field,
which would be expensive to fix. As a result, it's very unlikely that all rods will bear
against the base plate as in a perfect watch mechanism. The ACI recognizes this by
allowing only the front rods to be effective for shear resistance purposes, unless all
washers on the rods are welded to the base plate, in which case all rods would be
effective, as shown in the picture below.

Shear anchor bolt design.

Once the shear force has been calculated, the anchor rods should be checked for the
following failure modes:
  Steel failure – This is a measure of the capacity of the anchor material. It shall be
evaluated by calculations based on the material properties and the physical
dimensions of the anchor. ASDIP STEEL uses an internal database with the
properties of different anchor sizes and materials.
 Concrete breakout – It assumes a failure forming a concrete cone based on a
prism angle of 35 degrees. This predicts the strength of a group of anchors by
using a basic equation for a single anchor Vb, and multiplied by factors that
account for the number of anchors, edge distance, eccentricity, cracking, etc.
The group breakout area may be quite difficult to calculate, since it depends on
the geometric conditions of the support, as shown below.

A further complication arises when the anchor is located less than 1.5 hef from three or
more edges, in which case the effective depth hef needs to be recalculated. ASDIP
STEEL accurately calculates, for any support conditions, the breakout area Avc and
the effective embedment depth hef. It generates a graphic view as shown below.
Similarly to the anchor rods in tension, the calculation of the breakout failure mode in
shear is particularly important since a concrete failure would be non-ductile, and
therefore it should be avoided. To prevent this kind of failure, the ACI allows the use of
reinforcing steel across the failure surface. This anchor reinforcement, however, must
be designed and detailed carefully so that the strength of the rebars can be developed
at both sides of the failure surface.

 Concrete pryout – The nominal pryout shear resistance can be approximated as

one to two times the anchor tensile breakout resistance, with the lower value
appropriate for hef less than 2.5 in. For base plates the applicable factor is 2.0.

What is the φ-factor for shear anchors?

The φ-factor affects the nominal strength in order to be compared to the factored shear
force in the anchors. The ACI establishes a φ-factor of 0.65 for ductile steel failures and
0.70 for concrete failures, unless a supplementary reinforcing is provided, in which
case φ is 0.75.

The smaller φ-factors for shear than for tension do not reflect basic material
differences but rather account for the possibility of a non-uniform distribution of shear
in connections with multiple anchors. Unlike the anchor reinforcement, the
supplementary reinforcement does not need to be designed and detailed to take the
full shear load.

Interaction of tension and shear forces.

We have discussed the anchor bolt design for tension and shear separately. When the
anchor rods are subjected to both tension and shear forces simultaneously, the design
needs to satisfy the requirements of the interaction diagram shown below.

Are there any additional dimensional requirements?

The ACI 318 establishes that the minimum center-to-center spacing of anchors shall

be 4da for cast-in anchors that will not be torqued, and 6da for torqued cast-in
anchors, where da is the anchor diameter. There is not a clear definition of "torqued
anchor" in the code. The author's interpretation is that any anchor torqued beyond the
snug tight should be considered as "torqued anchor". Most of the anchor rods utilized
in base plates of building frames will not be torqued beyond the snug tight limit.

In addition, the minimum edge distances for cast-in anchors that will not be torqued
shall be based on the specified cover requirements for reinforcement, which basically
sets the concrete cover to a maximum of 3". However, it may be advantageous to use a
larger anchor cover to increase the side-face blowout strength. For cast-in anchors that
will be torqued, the minimum edge distances shall be 6da.

Takeaway

The design of anchor rods subject to tension and shear forces may be cumbersome and
time-consuming. The current ACI anchorage provisions are complex, and a number of
limit states must be checked. ASDIP STEEL includes the base plate and anchor bolt
design, with multiple options to optimize the design in minutes.