A weather data analysis method to mitigate and prevent plastic shrinkage cracking

Abstract

Placing fresh concrete in high evaporation conditions can increase the permeability and risk of plastic shrinkage cracking in concrete elements. Prevention measures can be time-consuming and expensive and are often neglected or incorrectly applied. This study proposes a data analysis method to identify the best time for concrete placement, most effective active curing measures, limits on weather condition for concrete placement and adequate testing conditions from location-specific weather data to reduce and mitigate the adverse effects of extreme weather concreting. The aim of this study is to characterise the evaporativity of a region and identify common trends that may be useful for planning concrete projects. The method can be applied to weather data from any location to produce more specific plastic shrinkage crack prevention and extreme weather concreting guidelines. To show the potential of this method, it is applied to four geographically and meteorologically different locations. The selected locations have a hot and dry climate, but the method can also be applied to a cold and dry climate which can, in some cases, produce even higher evaporation rates. The results indicate that for the selected locations specific active curing measures should be rigidly enforced throughout the year and that additional passive prevention measures are required in summer months. The necessity for additional passive prevention can be significantly mitigated by selecting a placement time with a lower evaporation rate.