Analysis of thermal stresses caused by hydration heat and temperature of the mass beam

The building of the SPF animal research centre in Taichang, Jiangshu is reinforced concrete frame structure. The longest beam of the building is 83 meters and the sizes of the beam sections are very large. The beams we called are mass beams. When we design the building construction, we need to think about the influence of the temperature because of the mass concrete. In this paper, using the finite element method, Analyses the heat distributions of the mass beam made by hydration heat and temperature, calculates the thermal stress caused by the heat. To find the influence of the sizes of the beam section, we design four beam subassemblies with different sections, analyze and compare the differences of their heat distributions in each beam and the thermal stress in the same place. This paper aimed to find the distributions of the cracks in the mass concrete beams and to provide the theory evidences on reinforced concrete design.