Project overview
This research aims to resolve a contradiction between two UK structural engineering codes of practice in the area of the design of reinforced concrete pile caps. The design codes for reinforced concrete buildings and bridges in the UK, BS 8110 and BS 5400: Part 4 respectively, are broadly consistent but have some areas where there are significant differences, one of the biggest arising in the design for shear in pile caps. BS 8110 can give strengths between two and three times as much as those given in BS 5400. This difference is clearly unjustifiable and there is no logical reason for it. Recent work by the investigator and others found that the available limited experimental dataset suggests that BS 8110 may be unsafe. The proposed research will provide a further body of experimental data that will overcome the shortcomings of previous research and should show clearly whether this is true. Laboratory experiments will be backed up by state-of-the-art non-linear numerical analysis of concrete. The research will provide data and experience relevant to the investigator's future research plans.