RILEM WEBINAR: Early age concrete: temperature development, maturity, and thermal stresses

We are pleased to announce that the next ROC&TOK webinar will take place on November 2nd, 2023 at 3PM CEST/Paris Time and will be one hour long (30-minute presentation + 30-minute interaction). The registration for this webinar is free.

Speaker: Prof. Kyle Riding, University of Florida, United States

Hosts: Dr Prannoy Suraneni, University of Miami, United States and Prof. Karen Scrivener, EPFL, Switzerland

Title: Early age concrete: temperature development, maturity, and thermal stresses

Concrete early-age properties development are critical to both construction economy and long-term durability. Contractors desire fast strength gain to allow construction to progress. High temperatures during curing accelerate the early-age strength gain, but coarser pore systems that have lower durability. When the concrete cools, if not planned carefully, can result in large thermal stresses and cracking. Concrete simulations are used to predict concrete temperatures, deformation, and stresses during curing to identify when problems may be expected to occur, and develop mitigation strategies. This presentation will describe how the concrete heat of hydration can be characterized, including temperature sensitivity through the use of an apparent activation energy concept, how it can be simulated, and the concrete properties used to calculate the concrete thermal stresses using the simulated temperature development. Brief examples of how concrete temperature and stress simulations can improve construction will be given.