Expert: Veto Varma - 4/10/2007

Question
best procedure for design mat foundation for tall building

Answer
Hello Farhana,

Sorry for little late reply as I was away on a tour. To answer your question many prevailing methods are available for design of mat foundation of tall building, but from design point of view some methods are rigorously used. I will explain that here.

For initial assessment or primary idea that how much thicknesses and other dimensions you need, designers usually rely on strip method i.e. take a strip of unit width along the length of the mat and analyse it as a combined footing. This method is not very accurate and uses many approximation. But this will give you good idea for initial estimation say for further analysis, quick check and cost estimation purposes.

I find finite element method best for detailed analysis because of readily available software for exact designs. There are some other methods also available e.g. ACI committee 336 proposed approximate flexible method, Finite difference method and finite grid method.

Hope this answers your question

Regards
Veto