Are You Designing Your Anchor Rods Correctly? By: Javier Encinas, PE The design of anchor rods has become complex and cumbersome with the development of the ACI 318 anchorage provisions, originally in Appendix D of the ACI 318-11 and earlier, and now in Chapter 17 of the ACI 318-14 . This blog post is an overview of the required checks in the design of anchor rods. Multiple checks need to be done for several failure modes, which in turn depend on the geometry of the concrete support. The anchor rods in a typical column are usually subjected to a combination of tension and shear forces. The ACI treats separately tension and shear, and then it combines both effects in an interaction diagram. Design of anchor rods for tension The main purpose of the anchor rods is to resist tension. The design of anchor rods for tension forces implies checking the limit states of steel strength, concrete breakout, pullout, and side...