Grade beam

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title: "Grade beam" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["building-engineering", "architectural-elements", "deep-foundations"] description: "Component of a building's foundation" topic_path: "engineering" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grade_beam" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Component of a building's foundation ::

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/Grade_beam.jpg" caption="Grade beam"] ::

A grade beam or grade beam footing is a component of a building's foundation. It consists of a reinforced concrete beam that transmits the load from a bearing wall into spaced foundations such as pile caps or caissons. It is used in conditions where the surface soil's load-bearing capacity is less than the anticipated design loads.

A grade beam differs from a wall footing because a grade beam is designed for bending and typically spans between pile caps or caissons, while a wall footing bears on soil and transmits the weight of the wall directly into the ground. It also differs from a strap beam because a grade beam is reinforced to distribute the weight of a wall to separate foundations, while a strap beam is designed to redistribute the weight of a column between footings.

Grade beams may also be used in conjunction with spread footings, in a case with large moments from lateral loads, in order to reduce the size of each spread footing.

References

References

1. Allen, Edward. (2009). "Fundamentals of Building Construction". Fundamentals of Building Construction.
2. Allen, Edward. (2009). "Fundamentals of Building Construction". Fundamentals of Building Construction.

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::