Purpose of steel plate under WF CMU lintel
Purpose of steel plate under WF CMU lintel
(OP)
I know this question may be a little basic, but I fell I should ask it anyways. I have been curious as to the purpose of a steel plate welded to the bottom of a steel W section lintel. Will the grout in the bond beam above the lintel and the webs of the CMU not transfer the load into the steel beam.






RE: Purpose of steel plate under WF CMU lintel
RE: Purpose of steel plate under WF CMU lintel
RE: Purpose of steel plate under WF CMU lintel
RE: Purpose of steel plate under WF CMU lintel
We avoid welding the lintels to the bearing plates...... every time we do we get a crack the forms diagonally from the center of the plate to the door opening. We switched to a bolted detail. We find that this detail has a little more relieve to allow for the deflection of the beam w/o cracking the block.
RE: Purpose of steel plate under WF CMU lintel
RE: Purpose of steel plate under WF CMU lintel
Very good point, but when I was working for a steel erector all I ever saw were welded lintels.
RE: Purpose of steel plate under WF CMU lintel
I do some work with a steel fabricator and made them switch to this detail. They didn't like it but they did. I haven't seen one crack yet since the switch. However, about 2 weeks ago I was on a job where the fabricator accidentally switched from a bolted connection to a welded connection and guess what....... there was a crack.
His excuse was that he thought is was for lintels only. In this instance the beam was supporting roof joists and spanned from wall to wall so he didn't think the connection required the same flexibility.