The drying shrinkage of concrete has a close relation to the water movement. Since the diffusion process of water in concrete is strongly dependent on the temperature and pore humidity, the process is highly nonlinear phenomena. Furthermore, the factors controlling the quality of concrete such as water-cement ratio, quality and amount of aggregate and so on, change the tendency of water diffusion process.
This study consists of two parts. The first, it is to develop a finite element program which is capable of simulating the moisture distribution in concrete. The second, the differential shrinkage and stress considering creep is calculated by using the modified elastic modulus due to inner temperature change and maturity.
It is shown that the analytical results of this study are in good agreement with experimental data in the literatures, and results calculated by BP-KX model. The internal stress caused by moisture distribution which was resulted from the diffusion process, was calculated quantitatively. The tensile stress which occured in the drying outer zone mostly overcame the tensile strength of concrete, and necessarily would result in crack formation.
