Research on the Influence Factors of Thermal Cracking in Mass Concrete by Model Experiments

Thermal cracking has significant impact on the safety and durability of mass concrete. This paper aims to find the reason for cracking of a prototype bridge structure and consider which influencing factors are the most important. For this model experiments on mass concrete in bridge structures were designed and conducted and thermally cracking was induced. Fiber bragg grating sensors were used to monitor the temperature and strain within concrete in real time, as well as the strain around the embedded cooling pipes. Thermal properties of concrete were deduced from these monitoring data and then used in the numerical analyses to verity the calculation accuracy. In the context of engineering practice, the primary influencing factors on the cracking of mass concrete were investigated by numerical analyses. The optimized temperature control methods were proposed to prevent the occurrence of thermal cracking of mass concrete.