Abstract:In the study of concrete structures course for civil engineering, it is usually tough for students to understand the construction measures to guarantee the bending bearing capacity of a reinforced concrete beam without the basic idea about the anchorage of steel bars in concrete. In this paper, a simplified theoretical model to determine the anchorage and development length of steel bars in concrete was proposed first. Then the bending bearing capacity of a reinforced concrete beam was analyzed and the moment-resistance diagram was set up which has been wrongly described in most text books recently in China. Finally, the construction measures, such as the anchorage length of longitudinal steel bars inside a support for a simply supported reinforced concrete beam and the cut-off points of longitudinal steel bars in the negative moment area of a reinforced concrete beam, were explained in detail based on the idea of anchorage of steel bars in concrete. Teaching experiences in Tongji University show that the basic concept of anchorage and the methodology to relate the anchorage to the bearing capacity of concrete beams logically can help students to understand the complicated construction measures of reinforced concrete beams clearly.