Lintel required to hold brick wall.

[PSAHCE]

does anybody have some experience in analysis of Lintels for brick wall opening? The brick wall is curved so the opening (about 6.5' wide) and lintel are also curved.
for straight walls, we have a schedule. But for curved lintel, it seems some torsion is introduced. How to design such lintel?
note: builder don't want to use steel. please see the attached images below. thanks.

 

[MotorCity]

Two thoughts......

1. Check arching action, you may not need a lintel (you literally have an "arch")

2. Construct a straight lintel across the chord of the arch

 

[JLNJ]

Interesting problem. It looks like an arch, but the thrust at the crown obviously isn't in the plane of the arch. All those hoop stresses want to blow the thing outward. You might need to design a flat curved beam which works for the torsion and then hang the "arch" from the beam.

 

[manstrom]

That's some goofy architect crap. Just because they can draw it doesn't mean it can be built (easily). Forget doing this out of masonry, the detailing and craftsmanship will be a pain. As masonry, it would need a ton of reinforcing at weird angles. I can't imagine how I would detail that.

If they really want to build that, I would use a curved tube with a hanging steel plate.

 

[XR250]

It would be interesting to see how Architect's drawings would shift if they also had to do the engineering.

 

[jerseyshore]

Stuff like this makes me feel like the guy from that old comedy sketch The Expert and the architect is the one telling us to draw the 7 red lines. Yes we need a giant curved arch, no steel, no framing, no gravity. Wait, what do you mean it won't work?! This is why we hired a structural engineer, you're the expert!

 

[IRstuff]

They did that sort of thing 500 years ago without structural engineers ;-)

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

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[Tomfh]

So true. We are so lame compared to those guys: