Introduction

Reinforced concrete is among the most widely used building materials for
structures. Reinforced concrete is a medley of concrete and steel making it strong
both in compression and tension. The advantages of reinforced concrete are:
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High compressive and tensile strength.

High resistance to fire
High serviceability
Low maintenance cost
Economical
Can be cast to required shapes and sizes

Columns are the primary structures used to resist axial load and bending moments
they are the most critical components of any given structure. The design of a
column is governed mostly by the type of load and moment a column carries. Our
project is to create an excel spreadsheet that can calculate the adequacy of any
given column that is reinforced on all four sides by developing the interaction (P-M)
diagram.
Limitations of the program:
1. The developed program does not check for the slenderness effect of a given
column.
2. The cross-section is limited to a rectangle (square being a subset of rectangle)
3. Shear is not considered
4. Ties are not designed
5. The number of bars on each face is limited to a maximum of 12.
Assumptions:
The following are the assumptions made in the development of the excel program
to analyze reinforced concrete columns:
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Strain profile remains linearly distributed across the thickness of the column
There is no slippage between concrete and steel
Compressive strains, stress and forces are negative
Concrete provides no/negligible resistance to tension
The maximum compressive strain in concrete is 0.003 at failure

The strength of RC columns is generally expressed in terms of interaction diagrams

that describe the relation of the axial load P n and the moment Mn. Both the load and
the moment are multiplied by the strength reduction factor . Each point on the
interaction represents a particular neutral-axis location. The interaction diagram
helps identify the compression controlled regions and the balanced condition. A
column is said to be in balanced condition when both the steel (in tension) and the
concrete (in compression) fail simultaneously. To summarize, an interaction diagram
is a much faster way of analyzing a concrete column for large eccentricities.
How to read an interaction diagram: