Thermally induced softening and cracking in concrete with minimal reinforcement

This paper deals with modeling of softening and cracking induced by non-uniform cooling or shrinkage of reinforced concrete. Concrete and reinforcement are described by a set of constitutive equations and cooling is assumed to be a linear thermal diffusion process. The investigated structure is a medium-thick wall with external restraint modeled by springs. The main purpose of the paper is to study the role and the amount of the socalled minimum reinforcement necessary to control cracking. Another purpose is to find the force actually arising in the wall during cooling and also to compute the range of softening and cracking of the concrete. Sensitivity of the results is studied in a parametric investigation.