Ground anchor was firstly applied in Algeria to settle the Cheurfas dam structure on the base rock in 1993. After ground anchor has been widely used for prevention of slope collapse and reinforcement of many types of civil structures, and its application in construction is increasing as to respond to the increased events of natural disasters.

* A thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in February, 2014.

However the common anchor structures often loses stability due to loss of tension, destruction of grout, and deformation of bearing plate in anchor head, as they have friction anchorage part and protruded bearing plate. It often results failure of slopes causing serious problems.
There have been many studies in application of the bearing anchor system to face those stability issues. The bearing anchor system maximizes pull-out resistance by increased bearing resistance and friction resistance by reaming the anchorage part. The advantage of the bearing anchor system has been well recognized. The bearing anchor system is a method to maximize the pull-out resistance by using bearing resistance in addition to friction resistance by reaming the anchorage part. The superiority of bearing anchor system has been recognized by frontier countries such as Japan and Europe for its stability and economical efficiency since 1950''s.
Different from frontier countries, the bearing anchor system in Korea adopts a wedge type anchorage rather than under-reaming type anchorage which is inconsistent with the principles of bearing anchor system because of inappropriate osculation method and thus it is hard to expect passive resistance.
This study investigated the effect of the bearing resistance based on field test and numerical analysis. The pull-out resistance is tested by bearing type anchor body designed to fit for under-reamed anchorage before grouting stage, and is compared with the pull-out resistance of friction anchor system. Moreover, the effect of bearing resistance force on neighboring ground is analyzed by numerical analysis in ultimate load condition before grouting stage. Lastly a new embedded bearing plate system is developed to resolve the problems of protruded bearing plate, and its effectiveness is verified by field test and numerical analysis.
The result shows that the bearing anchor system’s pull-out resistance is at the same or higher level compared to friction anchor system, even in the case of the reduced friction length. In addition the numerical analysis of embedded bearing plate system affirmed that crack and damage of bearing plate by stress concentration and eccentric force, the main problematic issue of protruded bearing plate, is improved significantly.