Effects of wind flow on freshly poured concrete

Abstract

Shrinkage is a more important parameter than drying rate to determine whether cracking of a concrete member will occur in a given condition. For a given drying rate concrete of a particular grade may crack but a concrete of a better grade may not. However, if the drying stress (governed by shrinkage) exceeds the strength of the body at a given instant, cracking occurs. Results of shrinkage study for different wind speeds are given. Good experimental backup has been provided in this study to the theoretical prediction of the previous work [1, 2] regarding concrete plastic shrinkage cracking. A general trend was observed in that as the wind speed increases, the shrinkage also increases. The study also observed that shrinkage is also very sensitive to the temperature of concrete. Plastic shrinkage could become a significant problem even at a low wind speed if the concrete temperature exceeds 50°C. © 1992.