Effect of fibres on early age cracking of concrete tunnel lining. Part II: Numerical simulations

Ring test results were then used to validate the capacity of a chemo-thermo-viscoelastic damage model aimed at reproducing the complex behaviour of fibre-reinforced concrete subjected to restrained shrinkage through identifying the material parameters with standardised tests. The numerical simulations conducted on a real tunnel lining show that for the studied geometries and concrete mixtures, thermal shrinkage constitutes the major phenomenon capable of causing early-age transverse cracks and moreover crack opening is highly dependent on the type of reinforcement. Modifications to both fibre type and lining thickness may serve to avoid the onset of transverse cracks.