It is well understood that concentrated forces applied in the plane of a beam or panel (such as a wall or slab) lead to splitting forces developing within a disturbed region forming beyond the bearing zone. In a linearly elastic material the length of the disturbed region is approximately equal to the depth of the member. In concrete structures, however, the length of the disturbed region is a function of the orthotropic properties of the concrete-steel composite. In the detailing of steel reinforcement within the disturbed regions two limit states must be satisfied; strength and serviceability (in this case the serviceability requirement being acceptable crack widths). If the design requires large redistribution of stresses, the member may perform poorly at service and/or overload. In this paper the results of a plane stress finite element investigation of concentrated loads on reinforced concrete panels are presented. Two cases are examined (i) panels loaded concentrically, and (ii) panels loaded eccentrically. The numerical investigation suggests that the bursting force distribution is substantially different from that calculated using elastic design methods currently used in some codes of practice. The optimum solution for a uniformly reinforced bursting region was found to be with the reinforcement distributed from approximately 0.2 times the effective depth of the member ($0.2D_e$) to between $1.2D_e$ and $1.6D_e$. Strut and tie models based on the finite element analyses are proposed herein.