ACI 318-11 Appendix D Changes from ACI 318-08

The information below does not address all changes found within Appendix D, but is rather a summary
to highlight the most important revisions. If you are going to design for the first time under 318-11
please review the ACI provisions and the example provided by the seminar.
Section D.3.3.4.1 and D.3.3.4.2
To summarize, if the tensile component of a strength-level earthquake force is equal to or less
than 20% of the total factored tensile force applied, than the ductile failure requirements of
D3.3.4.3 do not apply.
Section D3.3.4.3
This section addresses the tensile failure mode requirements, i.e. ductile failure or application of
over strength factor. To satisfy the sections requirement four options are provided as follows.
a) It must be shown that the ductile steel element will fail before any concrete failure occurs.
A ratio was developed to further make this difficult to achieve.

Additionally, there are several new detailing requirements required to meet Option (a).
Engineers should review these as they include items such as a requirement for an unbounded
stretch length for the anchor, etc.
b) Basically, it must be shown that the attachment will fail in a ductile manner before the
anchorage, i.e. the base plate.
c) Anchors can be designed for the max force a non-yielding element can transfer to the
anchorage. I believe this is geared to wood and light-gauge steel applications like sill plates.
d) Option (d) revised the old 2.5 times factor applied to the design forces from 318-08. The
new requirement is that an over strength factor be applied to the seismic component of
the load only. This is significant because the over strength factor may be less than 2.5 in
some cases and is only applied to the seismic component.

Section D3.3.4.4
Similar to 318-08 this section requires an additional 0.75 reduction factor be added to concrete
failure modes under seismic loading. What is different in ACI 318-11 is this reduction has been
eliminated for shear loading.
Section D3.3.5.1 and D.3.3.5.2
This section is similar to D.3.3.4.1 and D.3.3.4.2 above, however applies to shear loading.
Section D.3.3.5.3
This section addresses the shear failure mode requirements if seismic force exceeds the 20%
established in the previous section. An important note is that the option of forcing the steel
element to govern has been removed, i.e. similar to option (a) in Section D3.3.4.3. above,
instead only options similar to (b), (c), and (d) from Section D3.3.4.3. above remain.
Section D.4.2.2
Increases maximum anchor diameter to 4 in.
Section D5.5
New section added for bond strength of adhesive anchors in tension which includes a table for
bond strength coefficients. Coefficients are believed to be very conservative. Additionally,
section includes severe reductions for adhesive anchors subject to seismic and sustained tension
forces.
Section D6.1.1
To summarize section states that steel strength of anchor or anchor group shall take into
account the assumed breakout surface. In basic terms this means that if the controlling
concrete breakout failure mode only includes the anchors closest to the edge in a group, then
only those anchors may be included in the steel strength calculation. Please see the example
included in the slide pages 156 through 182. The consensus at the seminar was that this seems
like the incorrect approach because the concrete would have to fail before the steel for this to
occur, however when calculated this way the steel strength can be lower than the breakout
strength
Section D.6.2.2
In calculation of concrete breakout strength in shear an upper limit for basic breakout strength,
Vb has been added. I believe this will likely only effect larger diameter anchors.