Effective Embedment Depth of Anchor Bolt

The Effective Embedment Depth of the Anchor Bolt is often the most important design factor for concrete anchorage design. The effective depth largely determines the strength of the anchor in concrete cone failure, anchor bolt pullout strength and others. For cast in anchors and chemical anchors the embedment depth can be altered to suit the design strengths required. The CivilWeb Concrete Anchorage Design Spreadsheet includes unique graphs to show the effect of different anchor bolt embedment depths which allows the designer to determine the required embedment depth.

The effective embedment depth of the anchor bolt is not always easy to define. It is not a simple case of the total length of the anchor bolt in some cases, particularly for mechanical anchors.

Ideally the effective embedment depth of the anchor bolt should usually be supplied by the manufacturer. Guidance on determining the effective depth of different types of anchors is shown below;