Upon Shrinkage Induced Cracking of Concrete . A Structural Designer Perspective (original) (raw)

Shrinkage of concrete is a natural phenomenon, with several well known mechanisms. However, restrained shrinkage is the challenging problem both to design and construction practice. External and/or internal restraint to shrinkage generates tensile stresses that may easily result in time-dependent excessive cracking states, compromising the durability of the structures. After a brief introduction, the paper presents aspects concerning cracking states induced by restrained shrinkage of concrete, met in the last decade in Romania. Consequently, a new design guide was released, as part of the Romanian technical regulations system. Next, the paper presents a synthetic critical review of the guide. Résumé Le retrait du béton est un phénomène naturel, issu de plusieurs mécanismes bien connus. Pourtant, le retrait gêné reste un défi à la fois pour la conception et les méthodes constructives. Les entraves au retrait, d’origine externe ou interne, génèrent des contraintes de traction qui prod...