One of the goals of this research is to apply nonlinear fracture mechanics
to design problems encountered by the engineering society. Nonlinear fractu
re mechanics makes it possible to study the size effect with respect to the
pullout cone failure of headed anchors embedded in concrete under various
boundary conditions. This investigation shows that the fictitious crack app
roach can be extended with two orthogonal rod elements to become a new tech
nique that can successfully predict the size effect on the pullout tests. I
n this study the numerical investigation that describes the behavior of hea
ded anchors under tension loading has been carried out by a computer simula
tion using our original program ANACS (Advanced Nonlinear Analysis of Concr
ete Structures). To judge the validity of the results, the numerical result
s were compared with Eligehausen and Sawade's empirical equation and test r
esults of a report by the Reunion International des Laboratoire d'Essais et
de Recherches sur les Materiaux et les Constructions.