BEARING CAPACITY OF SOIL

7.12 Presumptive Safe Bearing Capacity

It is the bearing capacity that can be presumed in the absence of data

based on visual identification at the site. National Building Code of
India (1983) lists the values of presumptive SBC in kPa for different
soils as presented below.

A : Rocks

Sl Description SBC (kPa)

No
1 Rocks (hard) without laminations and defects. For e.g. 3240
granite, trap & diorite
2 Laminated Rocks. For e.g. Sand stone and Lime stone in 1620
sound condition
3 Residual deposits of shattered and broken bed rocks and 880
hard shale cemented material
4 Soft Rock 440

B : Cohesionless Soils

Sl Description SBC (kPa)

No
1 Gravel, sand and gravel, compact and offering resistance to 440
penetration when excavated by tools
2 Coarse sand, compact and dry 440
3 Medium sand, compact and dry 245
4 Fine sand, silt (dry lumps easily pulverized by fingers) 150
5 Loose gravel or sand gravel mixture, Loose coarse to 245
medium sand, dry
6 Fine sand, loose and dry 100

C : Cohesive Soils

Sl Description SBC (kPa)

No
1 Soft shale, hard or stiff clay in deep bed, dry 440
2 Medium clay readily indented with a thumb nail 245
3 Moist clay and sand clay mixture which can be indented 150
with strong thumb pressure
4 Soft clay indented with moderate thumb pressure 100
5 Very soft clay which can be penetrated several centimeters 50
with the thumb
6 Black cotton soil or other shrinkable or expansive clay in 130 - 160
dry condition (50 % saturation)

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Note :
1. Use γd for all cases without water. Use γsat for calculations with
water. If simply density is mentioned use accordingly.
2. Fill all the available data with proper units.
3. Write down the required formula
4. If the given soil is sand, c = 0

)‫(مصري‬ ‫ كتاب هندسة االساسات للدكتور اسامة الشافعي‬/ ‫المصدر‬ 

Lecture 17 : Bearing capacity [ Section17.1 : Introduction ]

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Presumptive bearing capacity: Building codes of various organizations in different
countries gives the allowable bearing capacity that can be used for proportioning
footings. These are “Presumptive bearing capacity values based on experience with
other structures already built. As presumptive values are based only on visual
classification of surface soils, they are not reliable. These values don't consider
important factors affecting the bearing capacity such as the shape, width, depth of
footing, location of water table, strength and compressibility of the soil. Generally
these values are conservative and can be used for preliminary design or even for final
design of small unimportant structure. IS1904-1978 recommends that the safe bearing
capacity should be calculated on the basis of the soil test data. But, in absence of such
data, the values of safe bearing capacity can be taken equal to the presumptive bearing
capacity values given in table 4.1, for different types of soils and rocks. It is further
recommended that for non-cohesive soils, the values should be reduced by 50% if the
water table is above or near base of footing.

Table 4.1 Presumptive bearing capacity values as per IS1904-1978

Type of Soil/Rock Safe / allowable bearing

capacity
(kN/m2)
Rock 3240
Soft rock 440
Course sand 440
Medium sand 245
Fine sand 440
Soft shell/stiff clay 100
Soft clay 100
Very soft clay 50
)‫ كتاب تصاميم الكونكريت المسلح (بريطاني‬/‫المصدر‬ 