National Center for Wood Transportation Structures

About the research

The early-age thermal development in mass concrete has a significant impact on the performance and long-term serviceability of mass concrete structures, such as bridge foundations. Great efforts have been made on predicting and controlling the thermal development in mass concrete. The free computer software ConcreteWorks (CW) has been developed and increasingly used for this purpose. In the recent IHRB Project TR 712 (Phase I), the CW software was modified to include features that are suitable for Iowa’s use, particularly for the prediction of the thermal behavior of mass concrete elements with a smallest dimension of 6.5 ft or less. During this Phase I study, two related research areas were identified by the research team and the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) for further research, and they are:

• Improving the thermal prediction for mass concrete containing slags, and
• Predicting the temperature profile of seal coat concrete slabs of bridge foundations.