Size Effect Analysis for Pullout Strength under Various Boundary Conditions

Abstract

One of the goals of this research is to apply nonlinear fracture mechanics to design problems encountered by the engineering society. Nonlinear fracture mechanics makes it possible to study the size effect with respect to the pullout cone failure of headed anchors embedded in concrete under various boundary conditions. This investigation shows that the fictitious crack approach can be extended with two orthogonal rod elements to become a new technique that can successfully predict the size effect on the pullout tests. In this study the numerical investigation that describes the behavior of headed anchors under tension loading has been carried out by a computer simulation using our original program ANACS (Advanced Nonlinear Analysis of Concrete Structures). To judge the validity of the results, the numerical results were compared with Eligehausen and Sawade's empirical equation and test results of a report by the Reunion International des Laboratoire d'Essais et de Recherches sur les Materiaux et les Constructions.