A lintel beam is a horizontal member which rests on the door or window opening to support the portion of the structure above it. Besides, the function of a lintel is the same as a beam; it transfers the structure load to its supports.
Like the beam which transfers the loads from slab & walls, lintel beams are used to transfer the load structure supported above it.
The wood lintel is the oldest type of lintel; currently, this is not used in construction.
In abroad, the wood pieces have been used as a lintel for home because most of the houses build up with wood material. A single piece of wood can be used as a lintel or group of wooden parts that can be used by the bolted joint.
Stone lintels are used across the opening because of material availability. The stone lintels are widely used in construction because of its good compressive strength.
Technically the brick lintel will not have excellent resistance against the compressive load. So that these types of lintel could be used when the opening length does not exceed 1m.
The minimum depth of the brick lintel should be 20cm, and as usual, width is to be equal to the thickness opening.
The steel lintel contains steel angles or rolled joists. The steel lintels are used when the load is heavy, or the length of the opening is considerable. Tube separators are provided to keep the joists in position.
The steel joists are embedded in concrete to protect the steel from corrosion and fire.
Now, the RCC lintel replaced all other materials for lintel because they are fire-proof, durable, reliable, and easy to build. An excellent advantage of RCC lintel is, it can be placed either precast or cast-in-situ.
Precast lintels are used up to the span length is 2m; if the opening length exceeds 2m, then the lintel would be constructed by the cast-in-situ method.
Assume that you need to construct a lintel beam for a door opening of 1 metre length
Opening length – 1m, Bearing 200mm at both ends
So length of lintel beam L = 1+0.2+0.2 = 1.4 m
Depth = 1.4/(20+1) = 66mm
L = Effective Span (Incl Bearing) l = Length of opening b = breadth of wall
Minimum Bearing = 200mm at both ends.
Depth of lintel = L/(20+modification Factor)
Modification Factor as per IS 456
Happy Learning 🙂
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The content was very informative.
Hi Sushwin, Glad you like it.
A friend of mine just had a house built. In her basement she has a seventy two inch opening with two double doors in the opening. When I looked above the door I noticed that it seems they poured concrete to make the header above the door. The width of this header is about twelve inches I do not know if they reinforced The concrete or not. Does this seem reasonable to you
I'm looking at my plans and I can see where it calls out that I must use a lintel but I just don't know what size to use. Would it tell me on the prints the size of lintel to use?
This is very educative,
In a span of 1.2m can 1.5m length of rod work as lintel?