Development of new device for measuring thermal stresses

In recent years, numerous analytical and experimental researches have been performed on the prediction of thermal stresses in mass concrete structures. However, due to the difficulty of the problem, limitations still exist for both analytical and experimental methods of measuring thermal stresses in mass concrete. In this research, a new 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, which has been previously obtained from temperature distribution analyses. Thermal forces are measured continuously by two load cells in the device. The results show that the thermal stresses estimated by the newly developed device agree well with general stress variations in actual structures.