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Steel-to-concrete bond is a basic aspect of the behaviour of reinforced concrete structures both at serviceability and ultimate states. When bond rules were originally developed, experimental results were mainly obtained on normal-strength concrete and a minimum relative rib area (bond index) was required by building codes to ensure good bond properties. The arrival into the market of high-performance concrete and newer structural needs may require different bond indexes. In the present paper, the experimental results of pull-out tests on short anchorages are presented. Several pull-out tests on ribbed bars, embedded in cubes of normal- and high-strength concrete with a concrete cover of 4·5 times the bar diameter, were carried out in order to better understand the influence of the relative rib area and bar diameter on the local bond behaviour, as well as on the splitting crack width generated by the wedging …