Abstract
Earth anchors used in retaining walls are usually terminated at steel brackets and the brackets have a rectangular section and triangle elevation (box-shaped bracket). As structures become large, the usage of the brackets increases and a flexibility of the brackets for applicable to various field conditions is required. A new bracket with an arch shape of plates (arch-shaped bracket) was recently developed and it can be applied at any angles of the earth anchor. The load bearing capacities of the arch-shaped bracket were experimentally evaluated under monotonic and cyclic loads and compared with the load capacity of the box-shaped bracket. Test results showed that the arch-shaped bracket had a higher load bearing capacity even though it is lighter than the box-shaped bracket. The arch-shaped brackets have stiffeners to reinforce the plates at the loading area and bottom area where higher stresses were concentrated. Due to the stiffener and the arch shape of the plates of the arch-shaped bracket, the plates yielded before the brackets reached their maximum strengths. Considering a safety factor 1.5 for temporary structures, the arch-shaped bracket has a design strength of 600 kN. Under 30 times of cyclic loads, the arch-shaped brackets maintained their load bearing capacities equal to the strengths under monotonic loads.
