DESIGNING A FOUNDATION

Foundation

Foundation is the part of structure below plinth level up to the soil. It is in direct
contact of soil and transmits load of super structure to soil. Generally it is below
the ground level. If some part of foundation is above ground level, it is also
covered with earth filling. This portion of structure is not in contact of air, light
etc, or to say that it is the hidden part of the structure.

Depth of Foundation

Depth of foundation depends on following factors.

1. Availability of adequate bearing capacity
2. Depth of shrinkage and swelling in case of clayey soils, due to seasonal
changes which may cause appreciable movements.
3. Depth of frost penetration in case of fine sand and silt.
4. Possibility of excavation close by
5. Depth of ground water table
6. Practical minimum depth of foundation should not be less than 50 cm. to
allow removal of top soil and variations in ground level.
7. Hence the best recommended depth of foundation is from 1.00 meter to 1.5
meter from original ground level.

Footing

Footing is a structure constructed in brick work, masonry or concrete under the

base of a wall or column for distributing the load over a large area.

Width of Foundation/ Footings

The width of footings should be laid according to structural design. For light
loaded buildings such as houses, flats, school buildings etc having not more
than two storeys, the width of foundation is given below.
1. The width of footing should not be less than 75 cm for one brick thick wall.
2. The width of footing should not be less than 1 meter for one and half brick
wall.

Different Processes in Foundation Work

The processes executed in the foundation works are given below.

1. Excavation of earth work in trenches for foundation.
2. Laying out cement concrete.
3. Laying the footing in case of raft or column construction.
4. Laying Anti termite treatment.
5. Laying Brick work up to plinth level.
6. Laying Damp proof course on the walls.
7. Refilling of earth around the walls
8. Refilling of earth in the building portion up to the required height according
to plinth level.
Precautions while designing Foundation

1. A foundation should be designed to transmit combined dead load,

imposed load and wind load to the ground.
2. Net loading intensity of pressure coming on the soil should not exceed
the safe bearing capacity.
3. Foundation should be designed in such a way that settlement to the
ground is limited and uniform under whole of the building to avoid
damage to the structure.
4. Whole design of the foundation, super structure and characteristics of
the ground should be studied to obtain economy in construction work.

Ratio of Cement Concrete and Mortar for Foundation

1. The cement concrete 1:8:16 is generally used in the foundation of

walls in construction work.
2. In case of column raft cement concrete 1:4:8 is the best recommended
ratio for it in the foundation.
 3. For brick masonry cement mortar 1:4 to 1:6 is used as loading
condition.

In case of column and raft footings up to plinth level cement concrete 1:2:4
or 1:1.5:3 are used.

Soil having Safe Bearing Capacity

Dry coarse and well graded dense sand have maximum shear resistance and
maximum bearing capacity. In general submerged soil and clay have less
bearing capacity.

Precautions during Excavation of Foundation Work

The depth and width of foundation should be according to structural design.

1. The depth of the foundation should not be less than 1 meter in case
the design is not available.
2. The length, width and depth of excavation should be checked with the
help of center line and level marked on the burjis.
3. The excavated material/ earth should be dumped at a distance of 1
meter from the edges.
4. Work should be done on dry soil.
5. Arrangement of water pump should be made for pumping out rain
water.
6. The bottom layer of the foundation should be compacted.
7. There should be no soft places in foundation due to roots etc.
8. Any soft/ defective spots should be dug out and be filled with concrete/
hard material
Fig: Excavation for foundation where root of tree exists

Fig: Excavation of wall in foundation root removed

Fig: Pit of root filled with hard material

 Fig: Excavation of foundation of wall with a patch of soft soil

Fig: Excavation of wall foundation with soft soil removed

Fig: Pit of soft soil filled with hard material

Demarcation/layout Procedure for foundation:

The following procedure is recommended for demarcation of a building.

For layout of a building baseline is marked on the ground either from

centre line of the road or from any permanent building nearby. This
line helps to mark out the front of a building. Side baseline is also
marked with the help of side structure or road or it can be marked with
the help of first baseline or boundary of the plot.
Fix temporary pegs at the centre line of walls/columns on both sides of
walls and columns in front and back side.
Fix peg at the centre line of walls/columns on both sides of wall and
columns in left and right side of front of building.
Check diagonals of the square or rectangle formed after fixing pegs.
 Construct Burji or marking pillars with pegs at a distance of 1.5 meter
to 2 meters and their top surface should be plastered.
Mark centre line on the top of Burjis with the help of thread (Soot) or
with the Thedolite in big projects and the diagonal and other dimension
should be checked.
Level Burji on all corners of building and the top level is fixed at a
proposed plinth level.
Mark the foundation of walls/columns according to drawing on the
ground with the help of centerline marked on the Burji.
Mark foundation trenches on the ground with chalk powder.
Excavate the foundation of the walls /columns up to required level and
the excavation must be checked with the help of centre line and level
burji to avoid any complication later on.

Fig: Excavation for foundation under wall

Advantages of Layout with the help of Burjis

 It saves time for measuring and setting of point again and again at the
time of construction.
It increases the efficiency of mason and foreman for doing their jobs.
Accuracy can be checked at any time at any step.
If any mistake is found, it can be easily be rectified at early stage. It is
very difficult to rectify the mistake in later.
Cross check can be done by senior engineer in minimum time.
A qualitative work is maintained.

Disadvantages for doing the work without layout

At some sites of work the contractor brings steel pieces, erects the same on the
ground and start the work of excavation. In due course these steel pieces are
just discarded. Thus no proper reference point is available while doing further
jobs.

It involves extra time for measuring the offset again and again.
Accuracy can not be checked at early stage and it will be very difficult
to rectify the same in later stage.
It involves wastage of time and money while doing rectification. This
also leads to bad quality of work.

Materials used during Setting up of Layout

1. Leveling Instrument
2. Balli
3. Long Nails
4. Hammer
5. Right Angle(Guniya)
6. Steel Tape
7. Thin Cotton Thread
8. Bricks
9. Cement
 10. Screen Sand
11. Lime Powder
12. Theodolite

Read More on Foundations

Analysis and Design of Truss using Staad Pro

The above figure shows a truss from several truss supposed to cover certain area.As shown the truss has a
cantilever part ,its span equals 4 meters.The proposed truss depth is 3 m.The loads are shown as
concentrated on tuss joints.The values of its load case are shown .
Use all the data you take in steel course to design and analyze steel truss.

Main Steps Of Modeling Truss in STAAD PRO

Entering Job information

Building model geometry

Defining member properties ,sections

Assigning Loads(Load Cases and combination)

Defining Pre-Analysis Print out,analysis type and Post-Analysis print out

Defining Design Requirements

Note :To see the image clearly click the image.
How to Start Staad Pro
The Pic below shows how to start Staad Pro

Click the picture to enlarge

 In New File select

1. Truss

2. Units (here KN and mm in this example)

The staad Graphical interface will appear as shown

in below picture
 1-Entering Job Information

2-Building Model (structure) Geometry

Defining Truss Geometry

One of the methods that you can construction lines and then draw on these lines the truss members
Noting that the no. of construction lines is excluding Ist line..
 After clicking Snap Node/Beam ,use the mouse
and connect between nodes created at the intersections of construction lines

How to see Diagram Labels(Nodes Numbers,Beam Numbers etc)

 Node and beam labels are a way of identifying the
entities we have drawn on the screen, and very useful when dealing with the output results

3. Defining member properties, sections

Property
In which we can define or choose sections properties of the members of the truss.

Spec.:
In which we can define or choose members specifications.

Support:
 In which we can define the supports properties (restraints).

Load:
In which we can define the applied loads, load cases, load combinations.

Material
In which we can define the material properties (ex. E, density, etc.)

Assume Preliminary Sections:

Using The Canadian Steel Tables

All Top and Bot chords are one size L 55*55*3
All Diagonals and verticals are one sizeL 45 * 45* 3

Assigning the sections created to the model

 Supports

By clicking on the support icon the shown window will appear. We have to create new kinds of supports
Use the mouse and click on the nodes according to its support type as shown below

4. Defining Loads
The creation and assignment of load cases involves the following two steps:

1. First, we will be creating all 3-load cases.

2. Then, we will be assigning them to the respective members/nodes
 For example
Dead Load Case can be Load Case No.1

Live Load Case can be Load Case No. 2 and Wind Load is the Case No.3

Also, we can define load combinations according to required.

For example, we can create a load combination
1.25 D.L. + 1.5 L.L + 0.8 W.L.

and In Dead Load Create the Self weight as

In each Load Case Creat the Nodal Loads on truss

as specified before.Make sure of the direction of forces acording to global coordinates
 After Creating the commond of (Perform Analysis-
Check);We have to assign the members that want to be this type of analysis for it.

Click Assign and then use the cursor and choose all the members,thus all the members should be
highlighted as shown below.

Pre-Print
To add the Pre-Print Commond click" Define Commands"

For example here we have choosen to print the support reactions,member forces,joint
displacements

Post Print Commands

Support reactions

Analysis results

Member Forces

Max Forces
Add which property you need and then use cursor to ASSIGN to which member in the truss

6-Defining Design Requirements

Steps

1. To Specify steel design parameters,go to Design/Steel page from the left side of the screen.Make sure
that under the Current Code selections on the top right hand side ,Canadian is selected.

There are many Design Commands in the STAAD Design subroutine.Here,we will use only to Check
Code,regarding adequacy of members.
7-Analysis & Viewing Results
STAAD Performs Analysis and Design simultaneously. In order to Perform Analysis and Design,select the
Run Analysis option from the Analyze menu

When you select the Run Analysis option from the Analyze menu,the following dialog box
appears.We are presented with the choice of 2 engines.the STAAD engine and
the STARDYNE Advanced Analysis engine.The STARDYNEAnalysis engine is suitable for
advanced problems such as Buckling Analysis,ModaL Extraction using various method ,etc
STAAD engine is suitable for this tutorial. Click on th Run Analysis button.

The soloving process is shown in pop up screen.

Visualization of Some Results

Note
Generally,in any program ,try to make some checks about the shapes of defletions,BMD,SFD.Also check
the level of reactions. Just to make sure that there is no significant nput error.
Viewing The OutPut File
During the analysis process,STAAD creates an Output file .This file provides important information on
whether the analysis was performed properly.
For example,if STAAD.Pro encounters an instability problem during the nalysis process,it will be reported
in the output file.
Alternatively ,we can select the File/View/Output File/STAAD Outputoption from the top menu.

The Output File

Its name is <>
As shown for example ,below are the results of the steel design check.

The End..