Ram Elements: I am currently trying to model a load bearing 8" concrete wall with 25'-0" opening. I have gravity loads acting in plane and wind load acting out of plane. I wanted to know if the concrete wall above the opening (about 4'-0") is designed as "beam" to support the gravity load above the opening. The additional opening reinforcement does not appear to be something being designed.
The portion above the wall is checked, but it's based on a finite element solution using the meshed plate elements in that region. It's evaluated like a wall and not exactly like a lintel beam.
So it can support the gravity loads with reinforcing shown in the "Detailing" Section. I was getting in plane moment and shear in FEM as zero over length of the wall and so was worried.
I would not recommend the Concrete Wall module for any kind of shallow beam (lintel) design over an opening. The program is looking at the forces in-plane on a horizontal section cut, not a vertical section cut, so it is not capturing the critical bending that could cause cracking or failure of such a beam. You can use the FEM Screen and the cross section tool to check the bending stresses (sigma x) if that's some help, but you would still have to convert that into an equivalent moment to check beam design. Checking it manually seems easier.
Seth, We are not using shallow lintel. We will be using full height of wall above opening (about 4'-6") as "lintel" supporting the gravity load. We will not have lintel per se, but wall will be reinforced as required. I just want to make sure that wall module does that.