Management of
Cracks
Contraction joints can limit cracking induced by moisture or temperature change
BY JUAN PABLO COVARRUBIAS
W hen concrete elements are restrained by base
friction or lateral stiffness of supporting elements,
cumulative strains arising from shrinkage and tempera-
ture changes can cause cracking. Unfortunately, modern
practices make such cracking likely.
Increasing demand for rapid construction has had a
major influence on modern construction practice, as both
contractors and owners must minimize financing costs
while maximizing cash flow and return on investment.
Equipment suppliers have responded by providing
systems allowing placement of extensive volumes and
areas of concrete in a single day. Producers have responded
by providing concrete mixtures capable of rapid strength
gains but with the potential for greater shrinkage than
more conventional mixtures. Unfortunately, the resulting
combination of large placements and high shrinkage
values can result in large cumulative stresses.
Design practices are also affected by the demand for
rapid construction and higher-strength concrete. It’s safe
to say that designers don’t like cracks, but it’s also
uncommon for designers to provide a solution through
the use of contraction joints. Even on buildings with large
footprints, permanent joints or even temporary pour
strips have become almost nonexistent in practice. It’s
possible, however, to provide contraction joints that
minimize cracking, yet don’t interfere significantly with
construction schedules.
Design development
In its report on the state of the art in design, construc-
tion, and maintenance of joints in concrete structures,
ACI Committee 224, Cracking, states that:
■■ Volume changes caused by changes in moisture and
temperature should be accounted for in the design
of reinforced concrete buildings;
■■ Contraction and expansion joints limit the magnitude
of forces and movements and cracking induced by
moisture or temperature change; and
■■ Contraction joints can be planes of weakness that
control the location of cracks.1
Although these basic principles are routinely
applied in the design of slabs-on-ground or exposed
retaining walls, they are almost never applied in
the design of mat foundations, basement walls, or
suspended slabs.
This disconnect can be rectified by recognizing that
contraction joints can be distributed throughout a
concrete placement. These joints will help minimize
distributed cracking and improve the overall aesthetic
performance of a concrete system; positioning the
cracks in designed locations eliminates the problem of
having cracks appear in places that the owner may find
to be aesthetically objectionable.
The joints can be created using wire mesh or poultry
netting (chicken wire) as a stay-in-place form (Fig. 1).
To ensure that a contraction joint forms, the hardened
concrete is then treated with a release agent prior
to placing the adjacent concrete section (Fig. 2).
For liquid-containing tanks, the joints can be made
impermeable with a bentonite cord, other expansive
material, or a polyurethane band. As the position of
the cracks will be known, they can also be sealed with
elastic material in a specially produced recess at
the joint.
Concrete international / july 2011 35

Fig. 1: A contraction joint for an elevated slab. Strips of extruded
polystyrene foam can be used to form a straight joint at the soffit
of a slab. This layer and the wire mesh are then held down by
continuous strips of plywood located above the reinforcing bars
nailed through the foam to the slab formwork. Here, the wire
mesh is supported at the top by a continuous bar wired to
triangular braces. Before placement, electrical conduit is routed
through the wire mesh
Fig. 2: After the concrete at the joint has reached initial set, the
braces, upper support bar, and plywood strips are removed.
Generally, the mesh can be abandoned in the concrete. Before
the next section of the slab is placed, the joint surface is painted
with a form release agent to minimize bond and prevent transfer
of tension across the joint as the concrete shrinks
Construction documents
General design requirements
Construction joints can be detailed to transfer moment
and shear. According to ACI 224.3R-95,1 flexural continuity
is achieved by continuing the reinforcement through the
joint with sufficient embedment length past the joint to
ensure an adequate splice length for the reinforcement.
By providing continuous reinforcing bars and ensuring
adequate surface roughness at each joint, designers can
36 july 2011 / Concrete international
ensure that joints provide adequate shear capacity.
According to ACI 318-08,2 concrete placed against a
hardened concrete surface will develop a nominal shear
capacity Vn given by
Vn = Avf fy µ
where Avf and fy are the area and yield strength, respec-
tively, of reinforcing bars assigned to carry shear across
the interface and µ is the coefficient of friction for the
surface. For a deliberately roughened surface with a
roughness amplitude of about 1/4 in. (6 mm), µ is 1.0 or
0.75 for normalweight concrete or all lightweight concrete,
respectively. With this roughness of 1/4 in. (6 mm) and a
µ of 1.0, the joint complies with the shear strength
assumed in design. No more steel is needed than for a
typical section away from the joint.
The width of the crack, however, has an effect on this
µ value. The shorter the distance between contraction
joints, the narrower the crack and the better the shear
strength. This leads to the need for designers to detail
contraction joints at appropriate distances. Because
flexural and shear strengths are met with these condi-
tions, however, contraction joints can be located in any
place of the structure.
Walls
According to ACI 224.3R-95,1 contraction joints in walls
should be at a spacing of no more than 25 ft (7.6 m). In
Chile, we use 16 ft (5 m) spacing. It’s advisable to keep all
the reinforcement through the joint. Even though the
stresses will be transmitted through the joint by the
reinforcing bars, the cracks between joints will be thinner
and less visible. The wall will also be more durable.
Elevated slabs
For construction efficiency, the best location for joints
in suspended slabs is at the edge of beams or walls (Fig. 3).
This position of the joint eliminates the need for shores that
would be required for an overhanging slab created with a
joint located at the third point of a slab. It also eliminates
the need to keep shores in the adjacent span and eases form
movement. It should be noted, however, that ACI 301-103
requires construction joints to be located in the middle
third of a slab span unless permitted otherwise. If construc-
tion joints are to be located at the edge of a beam or wall,
the engineer would need to explicitly permit joints to be at
the edge of a slab, and the contractor would need to
provide proposed joint locations for acceptance.
The positioning of the joints (cracks) at a predeter-
mined location allows the cracks to be hidden from sight.
For example, a crack on the edge of the slab can be
covered with a cornice. In walls and slabs, the cracks can
be located at the edges, in recesses, or under partitions.
 Fig. 4: The upper line of a contraction joint in a mat foundation is
defined using a temporary form fabricated from dimension
lumber. This form will create a straight crack at the surface

Fig. 3: Contraction joints in elevated slabs at the edge of beams

On floor slabs supporting flexible flooring, the cracks can

be located anywhere, but for slabs supporting brittle
flooring, the crack locations should match the joints of
the tiles.
In Chile, more than 30 buildings have been constructed
with slab contraction joints at the edges of beams or
walls. The steel reinforcement is continuous through the
joint as if the concrete were monolithic, with no reduction
at the joint as ACI 224.3R-951 proposes. These buildings
were inspected after the recent earthquake in Santiago
(8.2 on the Richter scale), and there was no evidence of
failure due to this method of construction.

Mass concrete
According to ACI 224.3R-95,1 contraction joints in
reinforced mass concrete structures should be spaced at
40 to 60 ft (12 to 18 m). The construction should be in
blocks with no bonding between them, so it’s advisable
to keep the reinforcement going through the joint (Fig. 4
and 5) when continuous reinforcement is indicated by
design requirements. The positioning of the joint should
be in locations where the cracks are less damaging to the
structural performance of the element.
Massive concrete structures such as concrete gravity
dams and massive walls are generally designed so that

Concrete international / july 2011 37


Fig. 5: Within the depth of the mat foundation, auxiliary bars
wired to the standees are used to hold the wire mesh in position.
A continuous dimension lumber strip near the bottom of the
foundation will form a smooth surface for the subsequent
placement of a bentonite waterstop strip
Fig. 6: After the initial section of the mat foundation has set, the
auxiliary bars and the wood strip near the base are removed to
form a smooth groove for the installation of a bentonite water-
stop strip
each individual monolith (concrete block) is capable of
carrying its load to the foundation without transfer of loads
from, or to, adjacent monoliths. Therefore, contraction
joints are generally constructed so that no bond exists
between the concrete blocks separated by the joint, and no
reinforcement is extended across the joint. However, if the
load transfer between adjacent concrete elements is
required, appropriate reinforcement should be extended
across the contraction joint as specified in the design.
Execution
According to ACI 301-10,3 construction joints should be
cleaned and dampened before placement of fresh concrete.
38 july 2011 / Concrete international
Fig. 7: Water tank with vertical contraction joints at
9 m (30 ft) spacing
If bond is required, a bonding agent can be used but is
often unnecessary for well-prepared massive joint surfaces.
In some cases, a surface retarder can be applied to a
prepared concrete surface.
In contraction joints produced to relieve stresses due to
shrinkage, there should be no bonding at the joint.
An inexpensive stay-in-place form can be fabricated to
create a construction or contraction joint with adequate
surface roughness and no bonding of the old and new
concrete. In Chile, wire mesh with wire spacing of about 1 in.
(25 mm) is used as the joint-forming material (Fig. 1). For
relatively thin placements, the mesh must be supported only
at the top and bottom of the concrete placement depth.
For construction joints, the concrete is allowed to
harden before the next section of concrete is placed. For
contraction joints, the initial placement is started imme-
diately adjacent to the joint and the second placement is
started away from the joint. In both cases, the roughened
Fig. 8: Wire mesh to produce the contraction joint. A wood strip is
placed to produce a smooth area for installing the expansive
bentonite waterstop strip

surface of the first placement is painted with form release

agent. To allow removal of plywood or foam forming
strips, the second placement must be timed to ensure
that the initial concrete section has reached final set
before concrete is cast against the joint. Similar systems
can be used to place contraction joints in mat foundations.
A continuous strip of dimension lumber installed near the
top of the joint will provide a straight joint in the exposed
surface of the mat (Fig. 4), and a continuous strip of
dimension lumber installed near the base of the joint will
provide a smooth keyway for the application of an Fig. 9: The vertical contraction joint after placement of concrete
expansive waterproofing joint filler (Fig. 5 and 6).
This system for contraction joints has been successfully 2. ACI Committee 318, “Building Code Requirements for Structural
used in water tanks. Figures 7, 8, and 9 show how it was Concrete (ACI 318-08) and Commentary,” American Concrete
applied to a 30 m (98 ft) diameter tank with 9 m (30 ft) high Institute, Farmington Hills, MI, 2008, 473 pp.
walls. The concrete was placed in vertical full height sectors 3. ACI Committee 301, “Specifications for Structural Concrete
9 m (30 ft) long. Each joint was formed with wire mesh. A (ACI 301-10),” American Concrete Institute, Farmington Hills, MI,
strip of lumber was used to allow the installation of an 2010, 77 pp.s
expansive waterstop strip. The tank is working very well
and random cracks were eliminated. Received and reviewed under Institute publication policies.

Concluding remarks
The detailing of contraction joints—placing joints in
known places—can be an important improvement for:
■■ Design, as the engineer can place cracks where they
have minimal effect on structural performance;
■■ Construction of elevated floors, as productivity can be
Juan Pablo Covarrubias, FACI, is President
improved; and
of Litoral Ingenieria Ltda., Santiago, Chile.
■■ Construction of mass concrete, as large placements
He received his MSc in 1977 and his PhD in
can be avoided.
1987 from the University of Birmingham,
England. He is a member of ACI Committees
References 325, Concrete Pavements; C610, Field
1. ACI Committee 224, “Joints in Concrete Construction,
Technician Certification; and C630,
(ACI 224.3R-95),” American Concrete Institute, Farmington Hills, MI,
Construction Inspector Certification.
1995, 41 pp.

Concrete international / july 2011 39