Abstract
In process of reinforced concrete (RC) box structure. the heat of hydration may cause serious thermal cracking. In order to eliminate hydration heat of mass concrete. this paper reports results of hydration heat control in mass concrete structure using the pulsating heat pipe. There were three RC box molds($1.2{\times}l.8{\times}2.4m^3$) which shows a difference as compared with each other. One was not equipped with pulsating heat pipe. The others were equipped with pulsating heat pipe. All of them were cooled with natural air convection. The pulsating heat pipe was composed of serpentine type copper pipe with 10 turns (outer diameter: 4mm. inner diameter: 2.8mm). The working fluid was R-22 and its charging ratio was 40% by volume. The conditions such as the number of turns. the length and the pitch of the pulsating heat pipe and the size of concrete structure were changed. Based on these experiments, it was confirmed that this construction method using pulsating heat pipe was effective to remove hydration heat of mass concrete structure and thus it was possible to prevent harmful thermal crack and construction Period and costs of concrete structure would be cut down.
