Soil Anchor Footing

The invention, called the SOIL ANCHOR FOOTING, is a footing supporting system in the
ground to support steel or concrete columns, substation equipment supports, light posts,
sign posts, light industrial structures, ground mounted solar panels, house and small
building columns, overhead pipe/cable supports, brick or block walls, fence post etc.

Anoop Arya has his patent SOIL ANCHOR FOOTING registered in Australia (patent No.
2013200425) and in USA (US20140161539).

In this type of footing, steel bars or FRP bars are used as mini piles to secure the footing slab
to the ground. A pre-cast slab with enlarged through holes for steel/FRP anchor bars is
placed over excavated ground at desired location site. Steel/FRP bars are hammered into
ground through holes in pre-cast slab for effectively securing pre-cast footing slab to the
ground and thereby resisting uplift and downward forces. The bars are secured to pre-cast
slab using epoxy grout in the hole around the bars within the slab. The holding down bolts,
for column to be supported, can be part of pre-cast slab or they can be Chemset bolts.

In another way of constructing this inventive footing, steel plate with enlarged holes for
anchor bars is used as footing slab. The anchor bars top end is threaded or full threaded
bars can be used. The steel footing plate is secured to anchor bars with washers and nuts.
The support column is secured over footing plate using normal steel nuts and bolts.

The ground is tested to determine the uplift and downward load capacity of anchor bar in
the soil near footing location. The footing size, slab/plate thickness, concrete strength, bar
diameter, number of bars, spacing, and embedment depth of anchor bars required for
footing design are worked out based on column base forces and structural engineering
principals or structural analysis software package.

Distinguishing features of the Soil Anchor Footing are given below.

Economical - 30 to 40% cheaper than conventional concrete pad type footing.

Time saving footing can be installed in a short time, say, 2 to 3 hours, requires very
small outage, compared to conventional footing which takes 2 to 4 weeks till concrete
gains full strength.
Less excavation Requires very small or no excavation (steel plate footing), compared
to conventional footing which requires deeper excavation, where soil collapse
becomes a safety issue and surrounding footings are also affected.
Environmentally friendly Very small excavation is required compared to conventional
footings, hence, little disturbance to ground, less soil disposal and erosion control
problem, no contaminated soil disposal issue which can be sometimes very costly.

Soil Anchor Footing Anoop Kumar Arya October 2017

 Space saving Footing requires much smaller space compared to conventional
concrete pad type footing. So, it will be advantageous where space restriction is an
issue and other footings are in close vicinity.
Footing will have smaller settlement compared to conventional concrete pad type
footing. So, it will be advantageous for deflection sensitive equipment support.
Over years, there will be some corrosion in steel anchor bars with in the soil, but, as
the stress in bars is very low, about 3% of full capacity and considering the corrosion
rate of steel bars in soil as 0.02 mm/y for non-aggressive soil, the footing life can easily
be over 50 years. Where corrosion is an issue, galvanized steel bars or Fiber Reinforced
Polymer (FRP) bars can be used.

Figure - 1

Soil Anchor Footing Anoop Kumar Arya October 2017