Numerous researches have been performed on the prediction of thermal stresses in mass concrete structures by both analytical and experimental means. However, the limitations exist for both analytical and experimental methods. In analytical methods, the fundamental limitation is derived from unpredictable concrete properties such as modulus of elasticity, coefficient of thermal expansion, etc.. And in experimental methods, a majority of researches have concentrated on measuring thermal stresses in real and simulated structures.
In this research, an experimental device measuring thermal stresses directly in a laboratory setting is developed. The equipment is located in a temperature chamber that follows the temperature history previously obtained from temperature distribution analysis. Thermal strains are measured continuously by a strain gauge in the device and the corresponding thermal stresses are calculated simply by force equilibrium condition.
For the verification of the developed device, a traditional experiment measuring thermal strains from embedded strain gauges is performed simultaneously. The results show that the thermal strain values measured by the newly developed device agree well with the results from the benchmark experiment.
