Tensile behavior of post-installed chemical anchors embedded to low strength concrete

In the scope of this paper, tensile capacities of post-installed chemical anchors embedded to 5.9 and 10.9 MPa concrete blocks are investigated. Pull-out tests are applied to 80 ductile steel bars (S420a). For the anchor diameters, 12, 16 and 20 mm are chosen. On the other hand, 10, 15 and 20 times the bar diameter are selected as free-edge distance and embedment depth for monotonic tensile loading tests. The results indicate that installation of anchors into low-strength concrete with sufficient embedment depth and free-edge distance is not unsafe as previously expected. To obtain ductile failure in low strength concrete, free-edge distance and embedment depth of minimum 15 times the anchor diameter should be required. Furthermore, a comparison of test results with ACI 318 capacities is done and it is observed that ACI 318 has quite an over-conservative approach for the tensile capacity of post-installed anchors when low-strength concrete is considered.