Question

Is it compulsary to provide rectangular footing for a rectangular column?

Answer 1

all aspects. but i will like to add some more in this. In shallow foundation we can use trapezoidal, rectangular or square footings.

Now generally square footings are provided under square column and rectangular under rectangular column. It doesn’t mean you can’t provide square footing under rectangular column but it will not be economical. Confused?

Well generally in rectangular column one direction moment say Mx remains more than that of other side say My. So for balancing it one dimension of footing should be large compare to other one.

Now about trapezoidal footing.

It is generally used in case of boundary restrictions problem, when load under one column is different than second one in case of combined footings.

For more details i suggest you to read some good reference book.