RCC INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

1. What criterion is kept in mind to ensure that no portion of the width of footing of
eccentrically loaded footings is in tension?
Ans. In order that the supporting area of an eccentrically loaded footing is fully in compression, the
width is so adopted that c.g. of the load falls within the middle third of the base.

2. What is a raft foundation?

Ans. Raft foundation consists of a thick reinforced concrete slab covering the entire area of the bottom
of the structure.

3. Define ‘shoring’ in building construction.

Ans. The temporary structure required to support an unsafe structure is termed as shoring.

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4. What is scaffolding?
Ans. Scaffolds are temporary rigid structures having rigid platforms raised up according to the height of
the building for providing working place for the mason.

5. Unit weights of plain and reinforced concrete?

Ans. According to IS : “Unless more accurate calculations are warranted, the unit weights of plain
concrete and reinforced concrete with sand and gravel or crushed natural stone aggregate may be
taken as 24 kN/m3 and 25 kN/m3 respectively”.

6. Why is the factor of safety considered greater in column concrete than in beam or slab
concrete?
Ans. The importance of the column is greater that that of the beams and slabs. This is because if one
beam fails, it will be a local failure of one floor, but if one column fails, it can lead to the collapse
of the complete structure. Therefore, the safety provisions adopted by standards is greater for
column concrete than for beam or slab concrete.

7. Why are the earthquake loads and wind loads not expected to act simultaneously?
Ans. Earthquakes are rare phenomena. It is therefore very unlikely that the maximum earthquake will
coincide with maximum of other occasional forces like wind, flood etc. Therefore, for design
purpose these are not assumed to occur simultaneously.

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8. Which criteria form the basis of designing a structural member?
Ans. The design of a structure or the members of the structure is made to ensure an adequate degree of
safety and serviceability.

9. What is ductility? Why is it important?

Ans. Ductility can be described as the ability of a material to undergo large deformations without
rupture before failure. If ductile members are used to form the structrue, the structure can undergo
large deformations before failure. This is beneficial to the users of the structure as in case of
overloading, if the structure is to collapse, it will undergo large deformations before failure. This
gives a notice to the occupants and provides sufficient time for taking preventive measures.

10. What is working stress method of design?

Ans. In working stress method of design the structure or the structural elements are designed in such a
way that the stresses in the materials are not greater than permissible stresses. The materials are
assumed to be elastic.

11. What is limit state method of design?

Ans. In limit state method, the structural elements are designed to carry the loads with sufficient degree
of safety and serviceability.

12. Why is the concrete cover to reinforcement required?

Ans. (a) to protect the reinforcement from weather and fire so that it does not corrode or melt, and
(b) to ensure the grip of concrete over reinforcement so that they act as one and resist the loads.

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13. Why is the maximum and minimum limits on the spacing of bars specified?
Ans. Maximum spacing of bars is specified to limit the width of crack in concrete while minimum
spacing of bars is specified to allow the concrete to enter when poured or a vibrator can be
immersed.

14. What is a difference between singly reinforced and doubly reinforced beam sections?
Ans. In singly reinforced beams, concrete resists compression while steel resists tension. In doubly
reinforced beams, steel bars are provided in compression zone also to give additional strength in
compression.

15. What are the required conditions for a beam section to behave as a flanged?
Ans. The required conditions for a beam section to behave as a flanged beam are as follows:
(i) Slab and beam should be monolithic.
(ii) The slab exists on compression side of the beam, and
(iii) The slab spanning is perpendicular to that of the beam spanning.

16. Why is the over-reinforced design not preferred?

Ans. For the over-reinforced section, concrete fails first. Prior to failure, concrete does not give notice
as it does not yield. Thus over-reinforced structure may collapse without giving a notice when
overloaded. Also this kind of design is uneconomical because the available strength of steel is not
effectively used. Therefore, over-reinforced design is not preferred.

17. What is a nominal flexural strength of a beam?

Ans. The nominal flexural strength (or cracking moment) of a beam is defined as the moment which
causes the tensile stress in concrete equal to the tensile strength of concrete given by its modulus

of rupture  f cr  0.7 f ck  .

18. How is the modular ratio defined?

mod ulus of elasticity of steel E
Ans. The modular ratio m is defined as m =  s.
mod ulus of elasticity of concrete E C

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 280
According to IS:456, the modular ratio m has the value where cbc is the permissible
3cbc

compressive stress due to bending in N/mm2. This value includes the effect of long term modulus
of concrete.

19. What is a transformed section?

Ans. A transformed section is a section in which the steel area is replaced by an equivalent concrete
area.

20. What is a characteristic strength of the material?

Ans. The strength of the material below which not more than 5 percent of the test results are expected to
fail is known as the characteristic strength of the material and is denoted by f.

21. What is a characteristic load?

Ans. The value of load which has a 95 percent probability of not being exceeded during the life of the
structure is known as characteristic load and is denoted by F.

22. What is a punching shear?

Ans. The shear associated with the possibility of punching a thin member by a concentrated load is
called punching shear.

23. What are the shallow and deep beams?

Ans. The beams are classified as deep when the ratio of effective span l, to overall depth D is less than
2 for simply supported beams and less than 2.5 for continuous beams. The beams are otherwise
classified as shallow.

24. On which factors the shear strength of concrete depends?

Ans. Shear strength of concrete depends on the following factors:
(a) Compressive strength: Higher the compressive strength, greater the shear strength. Shear
strength of concrete is proportional to f ck where fck is the characteristic compressive

strength of the concrete.

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 (b) Percentage of tensile steel: Larger the steel area, greater the shear strength.

25. What are the primary functions of the stirrups?

Ans. The primary functions of the stirrups are:
(i) to resist a part of the shear.
(ii) to resist the growth of the inclined cracks and improve aggregate interlock.
(iii) to tie the longitudinal bars in place, thereby increase the dowel action.

26. Why is the characteristic strength of shear reinforcement limited to 415 N/mm2?
Ans. The width of shear crack is proportional to the strain in shear reinforcement. To limit the width of
shear crack, strain in shear reinforcement shall be limited. To ensure this, code requires that the
characteristic strength in shear reinforcement shall not exceed 415 N/mm2.

27. Are the bent bars alone satisfactory as shear reinforcement? Why?
Ans. No. they should be designed to carry a maximum of 50% of design shear. This is because the
exact behaviour of bent bars in resisting shear is not clearly understood. Also, the bent bars do not
resist the reversal of shear force.

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28. What is a development length?
Ans. A length of reinforcement embedded in concrete so that it can develop the stress by bond is termed
as development length and is denoted by Ld.

29. Why is the design bond strength in concrete increased for compression bars?
Ans. Design bond strength in compression is increased by 25%. This is because the end bearing of the
bar helps in resisting compression. Also the possibility of cracking the concrete is nil and hence,
the allowable bond stress is increased.

30. What are the limits of deflection of a structure or a structural member?

Ans. The deflection of a structure or a structural member due to dead loads only should not exceed
span
or 20 mm whichever is less. For DL + LL and other total effects such as temperature,
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span
shrinkage, creep, etc., it shall not exceed .
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31. Why are the minimum and maximum flexure reinforcement specified for the beam section?
Ans. The minimum reinforcement is specified to resist the nominal flexural strength or cracking
moment of the section. In case of overloads, if the applied moment exceeds the cracking moment,
the beam will immediately fail by rupture of the steel if designed steel area (less than minimum
area) is provided. The maximum percentage of reinforcement is specified to avoid congestion of
reinforcement.

32. What are the necessary conditions for a slab to be considered as two-way?
Ans. The conditions are:
(i) The slab shall be supported on all four edges.
ly
(ii) 1y  21x or  2.
ly

33. What maximum diameter can be used for a slab of 130 mm thickness.
Ans. 16 mm.

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34. What is the function of bent bars in a simply supported slab?
Ans. The bent bars help in shear and also resist some negative moment induced at support. In fact, the
slab is considered as capable of free rotations at support and thus no negative moment is assumed
to occur at the support. However, some negative moment is always induced due to monolithic
nature of the structure. The bent bars resist this moment.

35. What is a redistribution of moment?

Ans. The ability of an over-stressed reinforced concrete section to shift the loads to the adjacent under
stressed sections in an indeterminate structure is called the moment redistribution.

36. Why is the moment redistribution be limited to 30% in reinforced concrete is a material
with limited ductility.
Ans. While applying moment redistribution, following points are noted.
(i) There should not be serious cracking in concrete.
(ii) There should be adequate ductility at the hinge points.
To ensure the above objectives, the code permits redistribution of moment upto 15 percent in
working stress method of design without any checks and 30 percent in limit state method of design
subject to some requirements.

37. What is an effect of torsion on the beams? How is it simplified for design?
Ans. Torsion induces shear stresses in the beam. Because of the torsion a beam fails in diagonal tension
forming spiral cracks around the beam. The behaviour of concrete structures subjected to torsion is
complicated and not clearly understood. As a simplification the effect of torsion is split up into
(a) equivalent shear, and
(b) equivalent moment.
The provision of reinforcement is then simplified to vertical stirrups in addition to stirrups for
diagonal tension induced due to vertical shear force and latitudinal reinforcement in addition to the
reinforcement required for bending moment.

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38. What are the braced columns?
Ans. The columns occurring in braced buildings or braced frame are called braced columns. In braced
frames, the lateral loads like wind, earthquake, etc., are resisted by some special arrangements like
shear walls, bracing or other arrangement. In other words, the sideway or joint translation is not
possible in such columns.

39. What are the flexible and rigid foundations?

Ans. This classification is based on the rigidity of the footings. Flexible footing is free to bend and
follow the theoretical settlement profile such as rubber pad. Soil bearing pressure on such footing
is always uniform. The rigid footing on the other hand does not bend and settles uniformly such as
an R.C.C. footing.

40. What are the advantages of using pedestal under the column?
Ans. The pedestal has the following advantages :
(1) It reduces effective cantilevers of footing and thus reduces the bending moment and shear.
(2) It gives larger width to resist the bending moment.
(3) It gives larger perimeter while checking two-way shear.
(4) It reduces the bearing pressure on footing.

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41. What are the piles?
Ans. Piles are nothing but reinforced concrete columns of large length cast-in-situ or driven vertically
or with limited inclination (1:10 to 1:5) with vertical if required, in the ground. The column loads
are transferred to the pile or piles in a group through a pile cap. Piles support these loads and
transfer them to the soil by side friction and the end bearing.

42. How does a pile transfers the loads to the soil?

Ans. The pile transfers the load to the soil by two ways:
(a) At the base, it transfers the load by bearing, the bearing area being its cross-section.
(b) At the surroundings, it transfers the loads by friction.

43. What are the retaining walls?

Ans. Retaining walls are the structures used to support earth, loose stone or other materials which
would not be able to stand vertically unsupported. Retaining walls support the loose materials and
prevent them from slipping; therefore, such walls are acted upon by the pressure of the retained
material and subjected to sliding and overturning.

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44. What is a significance of base key in retaining wall? How is it provided?
Ans. When all the reliable resisting forces to sliding are calculated and still the factor of safety is less
than 1.55, a base key is provided to get additional resisting force to sliding due to passive earth
pressure. The base key is constructed such that the form work is not used while casting. This
should be expected to develop the passive resistance.

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45. What is form work?
Ans. The temporary structure erected to support the concrete in its required form, till it hardens and
becomes self-supporting is known as formwork, centering or shuttering.

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