Upscaling semi-adiabatic measurements for simulating temperature evolution of mass concrete structures

Thermal analysis of mass concrete is often carried out through finite element (FE) analysis. The heat release rate in a material point can be determined from a small-scale isothermal calorimeter. Nonetheless, isothermal calorimeter is generally an expensive device and lacks practicality. In that light, this paper proposes a low-cost semi-adiabatic calorimeter setup complemented with a FE analysis. Such a combination provides evolution of hydration heat under isothermal temperature and enables upscaling to the temperature evolution in mass concrete structures. The upscaling process is demonstrated on three mass concrete blocks. Initially, semi-adiabatic measurements start on 14 dm3 concrete cube to identify the heat release rate. Next, the calibrated hydration model is upscaled and validated on a 1.0 m3 concrete cube and two mass concrete foundation blocks with 511 and 1,050 m3. The validation proves successfully the upscaling approach; also, the same temperature-dependent hydration kinetics performs well from small to large scales.