Finite element modelling of concrete shrinkage cracking in walls

Abstract EN

The intention of modeling concrete walls subjected to shrinkage deformation.

To achieve this goal, an analytical study is carried out using the finite element method (FEM) of analysis using program ANSYS.

Element (solid 65) is used to model concrete and element (link 8) to model steel reinforcement, and shrinkage phenomenon is represented by converting the measured total shrinkage strain to an equivalent temperature to calculate cracks width depending on strain generated at nodes.

The overall crack pattern and the estimated crack widths are shown to have good agreement with the experimental results.