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Prediction of the early age thermal behavior of mass concrete containing SCMs using ANSYS

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Abstract

Transient thermal analysis of mass concrete using ANSYS finite element program has become popular. In ANSYS, material properties and heat generation rate of concrete are typically input as constant, time-dependent, or temperature-dependent. However at early-age, the material properties and heat generation rate of mass concrete are significantly time- and temperature-dependent which should not be ignored. In this study, a detailed description of how to correctly predict the early-age thermal behavior of concrete is described and a modified USERMATTH subroutine for ANSYS is presented. In this subroutine, the heat generation rate, thermal conductivity, and specific heat for each element were programmed to be temperature, age, and location dependent. The early-age concrete material properties are described as a function of the degree of hydration. Experimental verification was conducted using three concrete batches containing supplementary cementitious materials delivered by ready-mix trucks. Each concrete batch was used to cast a 1.2-m cube with steel formwork and a 1-m insulated cube. The temperature differentials from the ANSYS simulations and experiments compared well, with a maximum error within 1 °C. Results show that the proposed method can predict the amplitude and time of peak temperatures at different locations. The thermal analysis technique developed in this study can be used to precisely analyze the temperature differentials in a mass concrete structure and help reduce the risk of early-age thermal cracking.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the support provided by the West Virginia Transportation Division of Highways (WVDOH) and FHWA for Research Project WVDOH RP#312. Special thanks are extended to our project monitors, Mike Mance, Donald Williams, and Ryan Arnold of WVDOH. The authors also appreciate the assistance from Guadalupe Leon for all his help during this study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, West Virginia University, P.O. Box 6103, Morgantown, WV, 26506-6103, USA

    Seyednavid Mardmomen & Hung-Liang Chen

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  1. Seyednavid Mardmomen
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  2. Hung-Liang Chen
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Contributions

SM Conceptualization, Methodology, Data Curation, Investigation, Writing—Original Draft, Writing—review and editing; HC Conceptualization, Writing—review and editing, Funding acquisition, Supervision.

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Correspondence to Hung-Liang Chen.

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Appendix (example of the modified portion in USERMATTH subroutine)

Appendix (example of the modified portion in USERMATTH subroutine)

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Mardmomen, S., Chen, HL. Prediction of the early age thermal behavior of mass concrete containing SCMs using ANSYS. J Therm Anal Calorim 148, 7899–7917 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10973-023-12243-9

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