Since Portland cement was first mass produced towards the end of the nineteenth century it has been practical and economic to cast and use concrete lintels to support brickwork over openings.
Concrete is made from reasonably cheap materials, it can easily be moulded or cast when wet and when it hardens it has very good strength in resisting crushing and does not lose strength or otherwise deteriorate when exposed to the weather. The one desirable quality that concrete lacks, if it is to be used as a lintel, is tensile strength, that is strength to resist being pulled apart. To provide the necessary tensile strength to concrete steel reinforcement is cast into concrete.
For a simple explanation for the need and placing of reinforcement in concrete lintels suppose that a piece of india rubber were used as a lintel. Under load any material supported at its ends will deflect, bend, under its own weight and loads that it supports. India rubber has very poor compressive and tensile strength so that under load it
will bend very noticeably, as illustrated in Fig. 90. The top surface of under $& ruDber becomes squeezed, indicating compression, and the lower load rubber surface stretched, indicating tension. A close examination of the india lintel rubber shows that it is most squeezed at its top surface and progressively less to the centre, and conversely most stretched and progressively less up from its bottom surface to the centre of depth.
A concrete lintel will not bend so obviously as india rubber, but it will bend and its top surface will be compressed and its bottom surface stretched or in tension under load. Concrete is strong in resisting compression but weak in resisting tension, and to give the concrete lintel the strength required to resist the tension which is maximum at its lower surface, steel is added, because steel is strong in resisting tension. This is the reason why rods of steel are cast into the bottom of a concrete lintel when it is being moulded in its wet state.
Lengths of steel rod are cast into the bottom of concrete lintels to give them strength in resisting tensile or stretching forces. As the tension is greatest at the underside of the lintel it would seem sensible to cast the steel rods in the lowest surface. In fact the steel rods are cast in some 15 mm or more above the bottom surface. The reason for this is that steel very soon rusts when exposed to air and if the steel rods were in the lower surface of the lintel they would rust, expand and rupture the concrete around them, and in time give way and the lintel might collapse. Also if a fire occurs in the building the steel rods would, if cast in the surface, expand and come away from the concrete and the lintel collapse. The rods are cast at least 15 mm up from the bottom of the lintel and 15 mm or more of concrete below them is called the concrete cover.
Reinforcing rods
Reinforcing rods are usually of round section mild steel 10 or 12 mm diameter for lintels up to 1.8 m span. The ends of the rods should be bent up at 90° or hooked as illustrated in Fig. 91.
The purpose of bending up the ends is to ensure that when the lintel does bend the rods do not lose their adhesion to the concrete around them. After being bent or hooked at the ends the rods should be some 50 or 75 mm shorter than the lintel at either end. An empirical rule for determining the number of 12 mm rods required for lintels of up to, say, 1.8 m span is to allow one 12 mm rod for each half brick thickness of wall which the lintel supports.
