NUMERICAL ANALYSIS TO EVALUATE THE EFFECT OF RESTRAINED EDGE DISTANCE ON EARLY AGE CRACKING DUE TO DRYING SHRINKAGE

Drying shrinkage can be defined as the reduction of volume that concrete undergoes as a result of the moisture relocation when exposed to a lower relative moist surrounding environment than the foremost one of its basic pore structure system. Finite element model(FEM) is developed and implemented, to simulate and analyses the early age restrained cracking behavior due to drying shrinkage. The Simulation focus on the evaluation of the impact of restrained edge distance on early age cracking due to deformation resulting from drying shrinkage. The FEM analysis Model deals with phenomena of temperature, humidity exchange, thermal diffusion, and mechanical behavior which can take a place at the three first days followed the concrete casting, to evaluate the diameter, distance effects on the early age crack. The effect of the diameter of the restricted steel ring was studied on the diameter of the concrete and the spacing between them. The results were compared with the results of the experiments discussed in the published literature; it was found that there is an excellent agreement for all the performed analysis.