A rigid plastic calculation method for predicting load versus maximum load pressures related to the formation of plastic hinges in the reinforced concrete (RC) beam on Winkler soil of foundation is proposed. The utility of the proposed method is to provide a simple calculation tool for hand calculation useful to predict the foundation’s bearing capacity and for verifying the over-strength of the soil-foundation complex. It is highlighted that the plastic resources of the soil-foundation complex depend not only on the characteristics of the soil, but also on the geometrical and mechanical characteristics of beam on foundation and the characteristics of the vertical load (intensity, eccentricity). The proposed method shows good agreement with numerical model developed with MIDAS Civil code. It is also shown that a maximum ratio of longitudinal steel bars should be adopted to ensure strength hierarchy with plasticization of RC beams before soil plasticization.
