Download this Excel sheet designed to help you easily calculate and design circular RCC footings under axial loads. This tool performs essential checks for bearing pressure, footing size, depth, and reinforcement — based on standard civil engineering practices and codes. It is especially useful for foundations of columns, poles, tanks, and circular structures.
What Is a Circular Footing?
A circular footing is a type of isolated foundation with a round cross-section, typically used beneath circular columns, pole structures, water towers, transmission towers, and industrial equipment bases. Compared to square or rectangular footings, circular footings distribute loads more uniformly in all radial directions, making them particularly effective for concentric axial loads.
Circular footings are governed by the same fundamental principles as rectangular footings — bearing capacity, settlement, and structural adequacy — but require adapted formulas to account for their geometry.
What This Excel Sheet Calculates
- Required footing diameter based on applied axial load and allowable soil bearing capacity
- Net and gross bearing pressures
- Footing depth to satisfy bearing and punching shear requirements
- Flexural reinforcement — radial and circumferential bar requirements
- One-way and punching shear checks
Design Inputs Required
- Column axial load (kN or kips)
- Column diameter (mm or in)
- Allowable soil bearing capacity (kPa or ksf)
- Concrete compressive strength f'c (MPa or psi)
- Steel yield strength fy (MPa or psi)
- Unit weight of soil and concrete
Applicable Design Codes
The sheet follows principles consistent with ACI 318 for reinforced concrete design and can be adapted for other codes. Bearing capacity checks use standard geotechnical equations applicable under most international codes.
Who Should Use This Tool
This calculator is ideal for structural and geotechnical engineers designing foundations for circular structures, students learning footing design, and consultants performing quick pre-sizing checks before detailed modelling.
Download the Free Circular Footing Calculator
This Excel sheet is particularly well suited for pre-design sizing and for verifying outputs from structural analysis software. It saves time by automating all the iterative sizing steps that would otherwise require manual table lookups and trial calculations. Download it below and simplify your next circular footing design.
