The foundations should now appear yellow indicating that the foundations are all ready to be designed (with the exception of the mat foundation which can only be designed using RAM Concept). To design the foundations:

• Select Process > Design > All Footings.

The program will calculate the optimum sizes for all of the footings. When finished, each should be drawn in green and sized appropriately. Any foundations that appear in red could not be successfully designed.

This may take a few minutes to complete. Keep in mind that the program is running an individual finite element analysis of each continuous foundation considering compression-only springs representing the soil below. The progress is indicated in the status bar in the lower left hand corner of the screen. For a complete explanation of how foundations are designed by the program refer to the RAM Foundation manual.

To investigate the design of individual spread footing:

• Select Process > View/Update.

With the target cursor, select the spread footing at Grid B > 2.

The dialog box will open to the Results Tab provided a successful design was accomplished. From here you can see the size of the footing and the reinforcement required. The signal light indicating the status of the design is shown. From here you can change the sizes or the reinforcement, redesign the footing and update the model if desired.

• Uncheck the box marked Optimize Reinforcement. New text boxes will appear allowing you to specify the reinforcement to use.
• Select #6 for Major and Minor Axis Bar Size. Notice that the provided steel area is immediately updated and it appears red since the quantity of bars is no longer adequate.
• Type 8 for Major and Minor Axis Bar Quantity.
• Click [Redesign].
• Take a moment to become familiar with the contents of the other two Tabs: Design and Material Properties. The Design tab summarizes the current design. When there is a problem with the foundation design this page will indicate why the footing could not be designed. There is no need to change any of the Material Properties at this time.
• Click [View Results].
• The Spread Footing Design Report should appear. Read through the results.
• Close the report and return to View/Update.
• Click [Update Database].
• Click [Close].

The foundation will now appear blue since it is user assigned. Note that the arrow should still appear green. This indicates that the design is still satisfactory. If something should change later causing the foundation to fail, the arrow will change to red.

To investigate the design of individual continuous foundations:

• Select Process > View/Update.
• With the target cursor, select the continuous footing along Grid A.

The dialog box will open to the Results Tab provided a successful design was accomplished. From here you can see the size of the footing and the reinforcement required. The signal light indicated the status of the design as shown. In this case you have optimized for the length of the footing beyond the last column as well as the thickness. Furthermore, the top and bottom reinforcement has been selected. The reinforcement box shows what reinforcing bars have been selected. It defaults to the Longitudinal Top bars.

To change the selection:

• Select Longitudinal Reinf - Bottom from the drop down list. The data in the box should be updated for bottom bars. You can also view the transverse and shear reinforcement in this way.
• If you wish to change the bar selection - uncheck the Optimize Reinforcement box. Then you can change the numbers in the table directly.
• When finished Click [Redesign] to have the foundation checked.

Take a moment to become familiar with the contents of the other two Tabs: Design and Material Properties.

• Click [View Results] to see a complete design report for the foundation.
• Close the report when finished and click [Close] to exit the View/Update dialog box without making any changes.

To investigate the design of individual continuous foundations:

• Select Process > View/Update.
• With the target cursor, select one of the pile cap foundations.
  

  As with the other foundations, the pile cap thickness or rebar may be altered through the view/update command.

• To see the design results, select [View Results].
• To see the maximum individual pile forces click [View Pile Forces].
• Click [Close] when finished.