Moment of Resistance of Footing

Foundations for overhead catenary systems carrying electrical power in railway networks, transmission towers, and other elevated commercial signs have to be designed mainly to resist large moments and relatively small vertical and horizontal forces. A widely used type of foundation for these structures is the rigid pier. But such foundations are very costly and cannot be adopted for small projects. Soil pressures below shallow foundations and earth retaining structures subjected to moments due to oblique or eccentric loads generally are not uniform. The non-uniformity of the soil pressure tends to tilt the footing. This tilt increases with the increase of load eccentricity, and consequently the bearing capacity is reduced. As a result, the designer enlarges the footing, and that raises the cost of foundation beyond economical values. This paper highlights the work done in the area of moment capacity of foundations, laboratory experimentation.