Early-Age Cracking Resistance of Reinforced High- Strength Concrete

High-strength concrete (HSC) with a low water-cement ratio (w/c) may experience large autogenous shrinkage (AS). When shrinkage of concrete is restrained by the subgrade, foundation, or other part of the structure, HSC is more prone to crack. However, studies devoted to the early-age cracking resistance of reinforced HSC under uniaxial restrained conditions and adiabatic conditions are still lacking. In the current research, the effect of reinforcement percentage and reinforcement configuration on the temperature history, shrinkage, stress, and creep behavior of reinforced HSC at early age was analyzed using the temperature-stress test machine. Test results showed that reinforcement could effectively restrain the development of concrete shrinkage and creep. The cracking resistance of HSC increased with increasing reinforcement percentage, evaluated by the integrated criterion. With the same reinforcement percentage, reinforced HSC with distributed reinforcement along with a proper thickness of concrete cover exhibited higher cracking resistance compared with that of central reinforcement. © 2024 American Concrete Institute. All rights reserved.