How to calculate the total loads on a column and the corresponding sole?

How to calculate the total loads on a column and the corresponding sole?

Engineering students are generally disoriented when it comes to calculating loads for the design of columns and soles. The manual process is simple.

For Walls:

Here, the dimension of brick is taken as follow:-

Thickness of brick wall = 6 inch

Height of brick wall = 3 m

Length of brick wall = 1 m

we know that, the Density of bricks varies between 1500 to 2000 kg per cubic meter.

For a 6 inch thick Brick wall of 3 meter height and a length of 1 meter,

The load / running meter to be equal to 0.150 x 1 x 3 x 2000 = 900 kg,

which is equivalent to 9 kN/meter.

This method can be adopted for load calculations of Brick per running meter for any brick type using this technique.

For aerated concrete blocks and autoclaved concrete blocks, like Aerocon or Siporex, the weight per cubic meter is between 550 to 700 kg per cubic meter.

if your are using these blocks for construction, the wall loads per running meter can be as low as 4 kN/meter, use of this block can significantly reduced the cost of the project.

For Column: Self weight of Concrete is approx 2400 kg per cubic meter, that is identical to 240 kN. Self weight of Steel is approx 8000 kg per cubic meter. Even a large column is selected with size of 230 mm x 600 mm with 1% steel and 3 meters standard height,

So, the volume of concrete = 0.600 x 0.23 x 3 = 0.414 m3 (density of concrete) = 993.6 = 994 kg (approx)

 the self weight of column is approx 1000 kg per floor, that is identical to 10 kN.

 So, here self weight of column is taken among 10 to 15 kN per floor.

So, the volume of concrete = 0.600 x 0.23 x 3 = 0.414 m3 (density of concrete) = 994 kg (approx)

So, the weight of steel (1%) of concrete volume

= 0.414 x 8000 mg/m3 x 1% (0.01)[density of steel = 8000 kg/m3]

So, steel = 33 kg



For Beam:

Suppose each meter of beam contains dimension 230 mm x 450 mm except slab.

So, volume of concrete in beam:= 0.230 x 0.450 x 1 = 0.138 m3

So, the self weight will be around 2.5 kN per running meter.



For Slab:

Let, Assume the slab has a thickness of 125 mm.

So, Self weight of each square meter of slab would be = 0.125 x 1 x 2400 = 300 kg which is equivalent to 3 kN.

Now, If we consider Finishing load to be 1 kN per meter and superimposed live load to be 2 kN per meter.

So, from above data we can estimate slab load to be around 6 to 7 kN per square meter.



Before starting the calculation of column loads, it is urgent to know the types of loads on the column.

The details about the types of loads operating on the column:-

The self weight of column x Total number of floors

Self weight of beam per running meter x total length of beam

Load of wall per running meter x total number of meters for wall construction

Total loads operating on slab which involve dead load  live load (generated for human movement), self weight etc.

Irrespective of above mentioned loads, the bending moment also operates on column, beam, wall and slab. This should be taken into consideration in final design.