The behavior of soil when loaded through a plate can give valuable information about safe bearing capacity and likely settlement. The plate load test would directly provide the bearing capacity if it is carried out on a full-size footing. However, this is not usually done since an enormous load would have to be applied. The usual practice is to plate load test small steel plates and extrapolate the test results to full size footings. The load is applied by reaction loading provided by dead weight or a beam attached to anchor piles. The load applied is read by Bourdon Type Pressure Gauge. Settlement of the bearing plate is determined by four symmetrical points by dial gauges from independent datum. The test objective is to check the bearing capacity of the soil by determining:
- Settlement under working pressure and 2.0 x working pressure
- Modulus of Subgrade Reaction.