Table of Symbols

The following includes a summary of the notation and symbols used within the RAM Foundation manual in reference to the ACI 318 design codes.

Symbol	Description
A	Concrete footing plan area taken as the Width x Length of footing.
A_c	Critical section shear area for 2-way shear
A_s	Reinforcing steel area.
A_v	Shear Reinforcing steel area.
DLF	Dead Load Factor
I_maj,I_min	Footing moment of inertia about the major and minor axis respectively.
LLF	Live Load Factor
M_maj	Moment along the footing major axis.
M_min	Moment along the Footing minor axis.
M_n	Nominal moment capacity of concrete section
M_u	Factored ultimate moment on section
P	Total factored load on column for each load case. P includes column self weight. When checking acceptable soil stress capacity the concrete footing's self weight is also included.
V	Shear force on footing.
V_s	Shear reinforcement capacity.
V_c	Concrete section shear capacity.
b	Length of critical section
d	Distance from the top of compression surface to center of the flexure reinforcement perpendicular to that direction of the shear plane
f^'_c	Concrete compression stress capacity (psi units).
f_ct	Average splitting tensile strength of lightweight aggregate concrete (psi units).
f_y	Reinforcement stress capacity (psi units).
h	Total section thickness or depth
k_s	Modulus of Subgrade Reaction (lb/in³ units)
l₁,l₂	Overhang distance to the right and left of the column center line when the footing major axis is parallel to the model x-axis
q_s	Calculated soil stress
q_s1 ,q_s2 q_s3,q_s4	Calculated soil stress at spread footing corner
s_s	Shear reinforcement spacing
w₁ ,w₂	Overhang distance to the bottom and top of the column when the footing major axis is parallel to the model x-axis
Φ_s	Concrete shear capacity reduction factor (0.85).
Φ_b	Concrete flexure capacity reduction factor (0.90)
δ_c	Actual Concrete Density used in footing
δ_cl	Concrete Density used for calculating self weight of footing