Bearing Capacity of Plain and Reinforced Concrete Loaded over a Limited Area

This paper presents a detailed study of the effect of different classes of lateral reinforcement on the bearing capacity of concrete blocks. The effect of block size on the bearing capacity of concrete is also studied. The results show that increasing the percentage of lateral reinforcement effectively increases the failure bearing stress of the concrete specimens; therefore, it is recommended that a nominal amount of lateral reinforcement be used even when calculations indicate that none are required. The experimental evidence presented in this investigation also shows that the ratio of ultimate bearing stress of large to small concrete blocks can approximately be scaled to 1/(S to the 1/4 power), where S is the scale factor. A mathematical equation to calculate the ultimate bearing capacity in terms of area of lateral steel reinforcement is adopted.