Roles of Bearing Angle in Bond Action of Reinforcing Bars to Concrete

The ribs of deformed bars can split the cover concrete by wedging action or shear off the concrete in front of the ribs. As slip of deformed bars increases, the rib face angle is flattened by the crushed concrete wedge, which reduces the rib face angle to a smaller bearing angle. The roles of bearing angle are explored to simulate this observation. Analytical expressions to determine bond strength for splitting and pullout failure are derived, where the bearing angle is a key variable. As the bearing angle is reduced, splitting strength decreases and shearing strength increases. When splitting strength becomes larger than shearing strength, the concrete key is supposed to be sheared off and the bearing angle is reduced with decreasing the splitting strength. As bars slip, bearing angle decreases continually so that splitting bond strength is maintained to be less than shearing bond strength. The bearing angle is found to play a key role in controlling the bond failure and determination of bond strength of ribbed reinforcing steel in concrete structures.