Optimal area for rectangular isolated footings considering that contact surface works partially to compression

This paper presents a new model to obtain the minimum area of the contact surface for rectangular isolated footings, considering that the contact surface works partially to compression (a part of the contact surface of the footing is subjected to compression and the other is not in compression or tension). The methodology is developed by integration to obtain the axial load "P", moment around the X axis "M_x" and moment around the Y axis "M_y". This document presents the simplified and precise equations of the four possible cases of footing subjected to uniaxial bending and five possible cases of footing subjected to biaxial bending. The current model considers the contact area of the footing that works totally in compression, and other models consider the contact area that works partially under compression and these are developed by very complex iterative processes. Numerical examples are presented to obtain the minimum area of rectangular footings under an axial load and moments in two directions, and the results are compared with those of other authors. The results show that the new model presents smaller areas than the other authors presented.