THERMAL STRESS ANALYSIS IN THE STOCHASTIC FIELD AND IDENTIFICATION OF CRACKING PROBABILITY FOR MASSIVE CONCRETE STRUCTURE

Abstract

The problem of thermal cracks in the mass concrete caused by the heat of the cement hydration has frequently been discussed. In the present paper, heat transfer, thermal stress and thermal cracking are simulated by the 2-D finite element method. By introducing the smeared crack model and the stochastic field for the mechanical properties of concrete, the more realistic behavior of thermal tensile cracks is reproduced in the proposed analysis.
Moreover, by means of FEM-Based Monte-Carlo Simulation, the relationships between the thermal crack index and probability of occurrence of cracks and crack opening width are identified.