The Prediction of Concrete Creep

Creep deformation of concrete is often responsible for excessive deflection at loads which can compromise the performance of elements within structures. Hence, the prediction of the magnitude and rate of creep strain is an important requirement of the design process and management of structures. Although laboratory tests may be undertaken to determine the deformation properties of concrete, these are time-consuming, often expensive and generally not a practical option. Therefore, relatively simple empirically based national design code models are relied upon to predict the magnitude of creep strain.This paper reviews the accuracy of creep predictions yielded by eight commonly used international "code type" models, all of which do not consider the same material parameters and yield a range of predicted strains, when compared with actual strains measured on a range of concretes in seventeen different investigations. The models assessed are the: SABS 0100 (1992), BS 8110 (1985), ACI 209 (1992), AS 3600 (1998), CEB-FIP (1970, 1978 and 1990) and the RILEM Model B3 (1995). The RILEM Model B3 (1995) and CEB-FIP (1978) were found to be the most and least accurate, respectively.