Anchorages and laps are essential design elements in reinforced concrete structures and are crucial for the force transfer between concrete and reinforcement. Considerations regarding sustainability and resource conservation inevitably lead to more slender and material-efficient cross-sections, further limiting the space available for reinforcement layout. Since high local reinforcement ratios pose challenges in terms of execution, the shortest possible anchorage and lap lengths are preferred for planning and practical construction reasons. The second generation of Eurocode 2 introduces a new semi-empirical design approach based on a non-linear relationship between bond length and reinforcement stress, allowing for more efficient and economical design. The focus is on whether shortened anchorage and lap lengths also meet the performance requirements and whether additional structural reserves can be achieved through suitable detailing. Tests on single-span and continuous beams are conducted to investigate to what extent shortened anchorage and lap lengths can still meet the requirements for serviceability, structural capacity and robustness. The investigations on laps focus on the redistribution capacity to the continuous reinforcement in the case of partial splices. Furthermore, for statically indeterminate systems, the ability to redistribute internal forces from highly stressed to less stressed cross-sections is examined, with the objective of ensuring a ductile structural response. Based on own experimental investigations and the evaluation of an extended database comprising anchorage and lap tests from the literature, the new design approach is analysed in detail and further refined. For a qualitative assessment of both the current and the new approach according to Eurocode 2, the calculated steel stresses at mean value level at the beginning of the anchorage and lap length, respectively, are compared with experimental results. Separate evaluations are carried out to verify that the influence of key parameters is represented without systematic trends. Subsequently, the design models for anchorage and lap lengths derived on mean value level are transferred into design equations in accordance with the procedures of Eurocode 0. As a result of the evaluation of own tests and the validation through systematic comparisons with data from 892 individual tests, improved coefficients are provided for the calculation of design values for anchorage and lap lengths, enabling both reliable and economical design. The evaluations presented in this thesis were contributed as part of the German contribution to the new Eurocode 2 (Chapter 11 – Detailing of reinforcement and post-tensioning tendons) and were an essential basis for determining the coefficients in the design equations.
Benjamin Horst Camps (Thu,) studied this question.