Evaluation on the thermal stresses of a concrete slab under solar radiation

The time-varying temperature field and stress distribution of a concrete roof slab is actively investigated in this study with the aiding of the commercial package ANSYS. Fine finite element model of the concrete slab is constructed and different boundary conditions are applied to obtain the temperature distribution within the slab. The solar radiation model is utilized to estimate the solar radiation received by the slab and the shelter effects are also taken into consideration. The numerical models can successfully predict the structural temperature gradient and thermal stress distribution at different time. The made observations indicate that the simulated temperature variation of the concrete slab based on the solar radiation model agrees well with measurement results. It is seen that the numerical models can successfully predict the structural time-varying thermal effects.