[TowerTalk] Achor bolts?

[jimlux]

On 3/24/18 6:34 AM, Hans Hammarquist via TowerTalk wrote:
> Dear towertalkers,
> 
> The are claims in a discussion on Face Book that an anchor bolt, "5/8 in. x 12 in. Hot-Galvanized", is suitable for a free standing tower. Someone even claims it is used for a 400' freestanding tower. It doesn't make sense to me but I might be overly pessimistic.
> 
> I hate to start lengthy discussions and this might be one of them so, please, comment only if you have a well grounded answer. I'm sure there are plenty of opinions about it like my own, but I would like to know if my guts feeling is right or wrong. What I am afraid of is that you can pull out an anchor bolt like that right out of curred concrete.
>

There are standard "pull out force" tables for chemical anchors (bolts 
epoxied into concrete)

Looking over some catalogs, it looks like the standard embedment length 
for 5/8" is in the 7-9" range.   Pull out ranges from 15,000 to 28,000 
lb, depending, it seems, mostly on the concrete (because typically, the 
adhesive is stronger than the concrete)

So how much force are you putting on those bolts in your freestanding 
tower? 100 lb at the top of a 100 foot tower is 10,000 ftlb moment, and 
if the tower is 1 foot wide, that's 10,000 lb load on the upwind bolt. 
So, the bolt would hold.