Early‐age cracking due to restraint: Laboratory and field investigations on the predictive capacity of the simplified method in Annex D of the future EC2

The Annex D of the future EC2 draft gives guidance on the evaluation of early‐age cracking of large structures due to restraint. In case of restrained conditions, compressive stresses are firstly generated in massive structures due to temperature increase, then tensile stresses are generated due to temperature decrease and shrinkage. Due to these tensile stresses, there is a risk of cracking which may be evaluated by the simplified method in Annex D. This method is currently verified against laboratory tests performed in the temperature‐stress testing machine and field cases on restrained concrete elements. The laboratory verification consisted of five approaches to consider different available input (modeled, assumed, or measured). The field investigation focused on the relation between the calculated cracking risk and the observed damage. The results show that the method has very good accuracy and captures with reasonable simplicity the mechanisms and the relations between the parameters involved.