Corner Lintel

[IsaacStructural]

Anyone have a good resource or detail for designing a lintel over a window that wraps around the corner of a building?

I've seen these before but never designed one. One idea I'm thinking of is designing each leg as a cantilever and giving it a longer than typical back span to make sure the lintel has enough vertical load to resist any overturning action. This seems like a conservative approach, so I'm open for other suggestions.

M.S. Structural Engineering
Licensed Structural Engineer and Licensed Professional Engineer (Illinois)

 

[dik]

I've done these several times using a 60deg angle from the cantilever support to the corner, and also provided hor joint rfg at ea second course in the area. They seem to have held for years. The cantilevered steel lintel is designed for the larger triangular loading.

Dik

 

[dhengr]

Isaac:
What is the wall above the lintels made up of? What loads are on the lintels, roof in one direction but not the other, dimensions of the lintels, etc. Obviously, the support at the two jambs and the back spans must be sufficient, and the deflection at the corner where the two tips connect is critical. The one canti. is likely slightly supporting the other. Dik is suggesting that a CMU wall above can actually be reinforced to act as a deep canti. beam, to help in this canti. spanning effort. And, any wall above must be reinforced and detailed properly or it might show tensile distress above the two jambs, near its top elevation.

 

[OHIOMatt]

I have done it with reinforced lintel block, but it does require shoring during construction. One other item of note, be very mindful of control joint location and detailing. Typically, we have a joint 4' from a corner. This can foul up the back span.

 

[asixth]

Is this masonry or timber?

I had a timber frame not so long ago which had one of these corner window frames, I detailed the lintel beam up in the same plane as the roof framing so that the stud span wasn't interrupted, and then hung the window head from the lintel and relied on the L-shaped wall framing for bracing.