Early Age Thermal and Shrinkage Cracks in Concrete Structures - Description of The Problem
Early Age Thermal and Shrinkage Cracks in Concrete Structures - Description of The Problem
Early Age Thermal and Shrinkage Cracks in Concrete Structures - Description of The Problem
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ARCHITECT URE CIVI L ENG IN EERING E NVI RONM ENT
The Silesian University of Technology No. 2/2011
a b
Barbara KLEMCZAK , Agnieszka KNOPPIK-WRBEL
a
DSc; Faculty of Civil Engineering, Silesian University of Technology, Akademicka 5, 44-100 Gliwice, Poland E-mail
address: barbara.klemczak@polsl.pl
b
MSc; Faculty of Civil Engineering, Silesian University of Technology, Akademicka 5, 44-100 Gliwice, Poland E-mail
address: agnieszka@knoppik.pl
Abstract
The issues related to often observed in practice scratches and cracks of concrete structures arising just at the stage of their construction are discussed in
the paper. The main cause of these cracks are inhomogeneous volume changes associated with temperature rise caused by exothermic hydration process
of cement as well as with moisture exchange with the environment. The paper discusses the origin of early cracks and their character in massive
foundation slabs and concrete walls. The main technological and material factors contributing to increase of cracking risk in early age concrete as well
as some methods of reducing this risk are also outlined in the paper.
Streszczenie
Zagadnienia prezentowane w artykule s zwizane z czsto obserwowanymi w praktyce zarysowaniami i spkaniami kon-strukcji betonowych,
powstajcymi ju w fazie ich wznoszenia. Gwn przyczyn powstawania tych zarysowa s nierwnomierne zmiany objtociowe twardniejcego betonu
zwizane ze wzrostem temperatury betonu wywoanym egzoter-micznym procesem hydratacji cementu oraz z wymian wilgoci twardniejcego betonu z
otoczeniem. W artykule omwiono przyczyny wystpowania wczesnych rys i spka oraz ich charakter w masywnych pytach fundamentowych oraz w
cianach elbetowych. Przedstawiono rwnie gwne czynniki technologiczno-materiaowe wpywajce na zwikszenie ryzyka zarysowania we wczesnym
okresie dojrzewania betonu jak rwnie metody ograniczania tego ryzyka.
Keyword s: Early Age Concrete; Cracking; Thermal-shrinkage stresses; Massive foundation slabs; RC walls.
1. INTRODUCTION occurs when the tensile stresses exceed the tensile
strength of the material. The development of tensile
Cracks are commonly observed in concrete structures stresses in concrete may be due to mechanical
and it is important to understand that all cracks may loading, some deleterious reactions and environment
have different causes and different effects on long- loading. Mechanical loading is commonly considered
term performance of structures. The cracking of a as being responsible for generating the majority of the
concrete member is a problem when the crack width tensile stresses in concrete structures while many of
exceeds a critical value such that the durability, ser- the cracks in concrete can be traced to intrinsic
viceability and appearance of the structure are volumet-ric changes or the deleterious chemical
impaired. Cracks may develop in concrete for a variety reactions. The volume changes results in response to
of reasons, but the main principle is the fact that con- moisture, chem-ical, and thermal effects in concrete.
crete is a quasi-brittle material with a low capacity for
Test results and observations in nature indicate a dif-
deformation under tensile stress. Visible cracking
ferent time of cracks formation and the difficulty with
TYPES OF CRACKS
CIVIL ENGINEERING
Figure 1.
Geometry of an exemplary massive foundation slab with the assumed finite element mesh
ture variation have consequences in arising stresses 2.1. Massive foundation slabs
in the concrete element. When the tensile stress The volume changes due to temperature and mois-ture
exceeds the tensile strength of the concrete cracks variation have consequences in arising stresses even if
can be observed in structural element. Early age the concrete member is externally unre-strained. In such
cracking of thermal and shrinkage origin is usually case some internal restraint is induced and it is caused
considered as a durability issue because it can by a temperature and mois-ture difference within the
initiate corrosion of reinforcement. Additionally, section. The internal restraints usually occur in thick
induced stresses can reach significant level in some sections, such as mas-sive foundation slabs, with a
cases and the cracking may affect the structural significant temperature and moisture gradient that can
capacity of the concrete. Early age cracking takes be built up through the section. To illustrate the
many forms in structural elements. Generally, two discussed phenomena some results of numerical
kinds of early age cracking can be distinguished: analysis are presented.
in massive foundation slabs the significant temper- The object of the conducted analyses was the massive
ature generated during the hydration process is foundation slab of base dimensions 10 m x 10 m and
generally different in each point of structure. The thickness 3 m. It was assumed that the analyzed slab
tensile stresses are induced by temperature and was made of the following concrete mix: cement
moisture differences developing between the inte- 3 3
CEMII/BS 32.5R 350 kg/m , water 175 l/m , aggre-gate
rior and the surface. In such elements random 3
1814 kg/m . The foundation was assumed to be
crack maps on surfaces can be usually observed,
reinforced with a 20 cm x 20 cm mesh at the top, bot-
in medium thick structures (mainly walls) usually tom and side surfaces. Steel class RB400 and
thermal and shrinkage deformation is prevented by 12 bars were assumed for calculations. The finite
restraint e.g. if a wall is cast against an old set con- element mesh of the analyzed slab was shown in
crete. The cracking may develop due to restraint Figure 1. Because of symmetry only the quarter of
stresses generated by shrinkage and thermal the slab is modeled. Essential elements of the slab
effects. In such elements a series of vertical cracks that were used in presentation of calculation results
starting from the base are usually observed. were marked with black color in Figure 1.
Presented numerical results that illustrate the dis-
cussed problem were obtained with the programs
TEMWIL, MAFEM_VEVP and MAFEM3D. The
Figure 2.
a) Exemplary temperature distribution: XZ=0, 6.5 day of curing, b) Exemplary moisture distribution (x100): XZ=0, 6.5 day of curing
a b
Figure 3.
Exemplary diagram of temperature and moisture distribution at the thickness of the slab
numerical model applied in above mentioned pro-grams temperatures are not symmetrical because the
can be classified as a phenomenological model. The boundary conditions existing at the upper and lower
influence of the mechanical fields on the temper-ature surfaces are different. A significant difference in tem-
and moisture fields was neglected, but the ther-mal peratures of the interior and the surface of the slab is
moisture fields were modeled using the coupled observed, for the assumed curing conditions it is
equation of the thermodiffusion. Therefore, the com-plex nearly 25C (Fig. 2a). Possible application of insula-
analysis of a structure consists of three steps. The first tion on the top surface may reduce the temperature
step is related to determination of temperature and difference in the cross-section of the massive founda-
moisture development, in the second one ther-mal tion slab (Fig. 3a). Unlike heat dissipation of massive
shrinkage strains are calculated and these results are concrete elements, moisture loss from mass concrete
used as an input for computation of stress in the last occurs very slowly and comprises mainly the surface
step. For the purpose of determination of the stress zones of the slab (Fig. 2b, Fig. 3b). In cases of insula-
state in the early-age concrete structures the tion application the significant reduction in moisture
viscoelasto-viscoplastic model with a consistent con- loss in surface zones can be observed. Moisture con-
ception was proposed. Full description of the model and tent inside the slabs despite the use of insulation is
computer programs: TEMWIL, MAFEM_VEVP and maintained at the similar level (Fig. 3b).
MAFEM3D, is contained in [3, 4]. The originating non-linear and non-stationary cou-
Figure 2a shows the nonlinear temperature distribu-tion pled thermal-humidity fields generate self-induced
on the 6.5 day of curing in the midspan cross-sec-tion of stresses in the slab, related to the internal constraints
the concrete slab, while Figure 3a presents the of the structure resulting from inhomogeneous distri-
temperature along the vertical axis of the slab. These bution of thermal-humidity fields. During the phase
38 ARC HITE CTUR E CIVIL ENG IN EERI NG ENVIRONMENT 2/2011