The option to use a presumed bearing capacity method (instead of the Ultimate bearing pressure capacity) for per EN-1997-1 cl. 6.5.2.4 was added in an earlier release for isolated foundations. The presumed bearing capacity method uses SLS pad pressure results checked against a presumed bearing resistance entered by the engineer. Following customer requests, in Tekla Structural Designer 2020 this method option is now extended to include Mat Foundations.

• The Design setting to control the application of this method is moved from the Isolated Foundations > General Parameters group to the Foundations > General group of the Foundations Design Settings, as shown below, and now applies to both isolated and mat foundations together.

  • The new combined setting will be off by default for new models. However, for existing models in which it was activated for Isolated Foundations, it will be checked on automatically when they are opened in this release.

• When activated, the mat foundation Soil Parameter properties change to allow input of the Presumed bearing resistance of the check as shown below.