BEARING CAPACITY OF PLAIN AND REINFORCED-CONCRETE LOADED OVER A LIMITED-AREA

This paper presents a detailed study of the effect of different classe s of lateral reinforcement on the bearing capacity of concrete blocks. The effect of blocks size on the bearing capacity of concrete is also studied. The results show that increasing the percentage of lateral r einforcement effectively increases the failure bearing stress of the c oncrete 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 investig ation also shows that the ratio of ultimate bearing stress of large to small concrete blocks can approximately be scaled to 1/S-1/4, where S is the scale factor A mathematical equation to calculate the ultimate bearing capacity in term of area of lateral steel reinforcement is ad opted.