What Foundanz designs and checks
This page lists what the evaluation build does, read from the software itself, and what it does not do yet.
Design codes
- ACI 318-19
- EN 1992-1-1:2004 with A1:2014 (Eurocode 2), using the recommended values rather than any National Annex
- IS 456:2000, including the central band for short-direction steel in a rectangular footing
The full report records which code the calculation ran to, with the design strengths it used.
Foundation types
- Spread footings, rectangular or octagonal, carrying one or more piers. The octagon is for vessels, stacks and other axisymmetric loads.
- Strap (cantilever) footings: the second pad, the strap beam and the interior column.
- Pile caps: the pile layout, the reaction in each pile, and the cap design.
Checks
Geotechnical
- Bearing pressure under the service combinations
- Overturning, sliding and uplift, with buoyancy from the water table. For a pile cap, the pile group resists these instead, and sliding is reported once, with the cap design.
Structural
- Footing flexure in both directions, top and bottom, with minimum steel
- One-way shear and punching shear. When the footing has to deepen for shear, the extra concrete goes back through the geotechnical checks.
- Piers: combined axial load and bending, slenderness, and detailing limits
- Anchor bolt groups to ACI 318: every failure mode is reported with its own capacity, and the governing one is named
Sizing
- Automatic sizing finds the smallest plan that passes, using the same calculation the report uses, and then confirms that the next size down fails.
- You can state your own bar and spacing for any face. The requirement is still computed, and a bar that does not carry the load still fails.
Loads and locations
- Two ways to give loads, never mixed in one foundation: load cases with a combination factor matrix, or combinations an analysis has already applied.
- Support reactions import from STAAD.Pro output, as CSV or PDF. An imported combination that cannot be classified as strength or service is refused rather than guessed.
- One foundation type can be placed at many locations, each with its own reactions. It is designed for the envelope, and the report names the location that governed.
- Plot plan layout: foundations are placed in groups from a shared origin, by footing centre or by a named pier, and footprints that clash are flagged.
Results and reports
- An HTML report at three depths: a one-page summary, a standard report, and a full report with a formula-by-formula narrative, drawings and quantities.
- The narrative shows each formula with the engine’s own numbers in it; it does not recalculate outcomes for itself.
- Plan and elevation drawings of each foundation.
- Calculations are in SI units; results can be displayed in US customary units.
Working on a project
- Everything saves as you work. History keeps up to twenty named checkpoints you can restore.
- A deleted project can be restored for 30 days.
- Projects and single foundations can be exported to a project file (.fdz) and imported again.
Not offered in this build
- DXF (CAD) export. The button is visible but switched off.
- A single report for a whole project. Each foundation has its own report.
Known limitations
- The pile length below a cap is stored and drawn, but no check uses it yet.
- A footing or pile cap cannot have an opening or void.
- A pile-cap drawing is left out of the report, rather than drawn from assumed values, when part of the stored design it needs is missing.
The full list of known issues, with what each one affects, is available to evaluators inside the application.