DESIGN OF PAD BASE

The axially loaded pad base in Design Example 2 is to be redesigned as a reinforced base, founded in
the weathered sandstone. Assuming settlements have been judged to be satisfactory, the base will
have an allowable bearing pressure, na = 550 kN/m2.
Loadings

Since dead and imposed loads are approximately equal, a

combined partial load factor of P = 1.5 will be used.
Area of base

Adopt a 3.0 m 3.0 m square base, i.e. L = B = 3.0 m (see Fig. 11.25). Reactive design pressure
on base for concrete design

Fig. 11.25 Reinforced pad base design example.

Depth of base
The base and its reinforcement must be capable of resisting bending, beam shear and punching shear.
At rst glance it is not always possible to judge which is critical. The process of selecting a suitable
depth for the base is simplied by use of the charts for estimating effective depth. The effective depth
will be checked for each case, assuming a typical reinforcement percentage
of between 0.25% and 0.50%. The results are shown in Table 11.1.
Table 11.1 Estimating effective depth for reinforced pad base design example

This indicates that bending is critical, i.e. it requires the greatest effective depth, for low percentages
of reinforcement.
For this particular example an average effective depth in both directions of d = 600 mm will be
selected.
Overall depth of base is, h = 600 + 25 (bar diameter)
+ 50 (cover)
= 675 mm
Bending
From Fig. 11.25, the cantilever moment at face of base plate is

Shear
The base should be checked for both beam shear and punching shear, since either may be critical.
Grade C40 concrete has been specied.
Local shear at column face
The shear at the face of the column should be checked.

Allowable concrete shear stress, vc = 0.57 N/mm2

From BS 8110: Part 1: 3.4.5.8, the critical location for beam shear is at a distance 2d = 2 600 =
1200 mm from the face of the load (i.e. from the edge of the base plate in this example). The shear
force acting across this failure plane is
Vbeam = (design pressure) (area of base beyondcritical location)

Punching shear
The critical location for punch- ing shear for a square load is a square perimeter a distance 1.5d = 1.5
600 = 900 mm from the face of the load.
The length of one side of this perimeter is

Area of base outside of perimeter

Comparison with vbeam = 0.12 N/mm2 indicates that, in this instance, punching shear is more critical
than beam shear.
This is normally the case with square pad foundations. If however a foundation size of say 2 m 4 m
had been chosen in this example, beam shear may well become critical.
Local bond
Although not covered by BS 8110, local bond can be a problem in foundation design, and should
therefore be checked at sections with high shear stress. Local bond is given by

where us is the sum of the bar perimeters at the section being considered.
Punching shear, Vu = 2979 kN
The length of the punching shear is u = 8800 mm.
T25 bars @ 175 centres each way are proposed. The total number of bars crossing the shear
perimeter is u/175 = 50.
The local bond stress is

where la is the lever arm which CP 110 approximates to the effective depth d.