Prediction of thermal stress in concrete structures with various restraints using thermal stress device

Abstract

Generally, thermal stress induced by hydration heat causes cracking in mass concrete structures, requiring a thorough control during the construction. The prediction of the thermal stress is currently undertaken by means of numerical analysis despite its lack of reliability due to the properties of concrete varying over time. In this paper, a method for the prediction of thermal stress in concrete structures by adjusting thermal stress measured by a thermal stress device according to the degree of restraint is proposed to improve the prediction accuracy. The ratio of stress in concrete structures to stress under complete restraint is used as the degree of restraint. To consider the history of the degree of restraint, incremental stress is predicted by comparing the degree of restraint and the incremental stress obtained by the thermal stress device. Furthermore, the thermal stresses of wall and foundation predicted by the proposed method are compared to those obtained by numerical analysis. The thermal stresses obtained by the proposed method are similar to those obtained by the analysis for structures with internally as well as externally strong restraint. It is therefore concluded that the prediction of thermal stress for concrete structures with various boundary conditions using the proposed method is suggested to be accurate.