Construction and Building Materials 25 (2011) 4232–4240

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Construction and Building Materials

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/conbuildmat

Thermography as a technique for monitoring early age temperatures

of hardening concrete
Miguel Azenha a,⇑, Rui Faria b,1, Helena Figueiras b,1
a
ISISE – Institute for Sustainability and Innovation in Structural Engineering, University of Minho, School of Engineering, Department of Civil Engineering,
Campus de Azurém, 4800-058 Guimarães, Portugal
b
LABEST – Laboratory for the Concrete Technology and Structural Behaviour, University of Porto, Faculty of Engineering, Department of Civil Engineering,
Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, s/n, 4200-465 Porto, Portugal

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The exothermal character of cement hydration reactions causes concrete to endure temperature changes
Received 30 August 2010 during the first days after casting, with associated volumetric deformations that may induce undesired
Received in revised form 20 April 2011 cracking. The capability to predict temperature evolution in concrete since casting is thus important to
Accepted 21 April 2011
back decisions that avoid detrimental thermal cracking in concrete structures. Even though several
Available online 13 May 2011
approaches exist to model the early age behavior of concrete, the laboratory or in situ verification of
numerical predictions is scarce, and mostly done with embedded temperature sensors, with limited sam-
Keywords:
pling points. The present research intends to evaluate the performance of the thermography technique in
Cement heat of hydration
Thermography
the continuous monitoring of surface temperatures of a hydrating 0.40  0.40  0.40 m3 concrete cube, in
Embedded temperature sensors which embedded thermal sensors are also used. By using thermography, simultaneous monitoring of the
Numerical simulation visible surfaces of the specimen is possible, thus providing comprehensive information regarding the evo-
lution of surface temperatures. The temperatures monitored with the thermography, as well as with the
embedded temperature sensors, are finally used as a benchmark example for validation of a 3D finite ele-
ment numerical code for thermal analysis developed by the authors. The use of thermography images for
validation of finite element results is rather more advantageous than the use of standard single point
temperature measurements, in view of the large facility and wide range of comparison provided by
the simultaneous visualization of temperature surface color maps (measured and simulated).
Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction flow), military/law enforcement, gas leak detection, building

The prediction of temperature development in concrete struc-
tures since casting, and throughout the early ages as a consequence
of the cement exothermal hydration reactions, has been dealt with
by several authors in recent years [1–12]. Most of these authors
use the finite element method (FEM) for the resolution of the
energy balance equation that allows computing the concrete tem-
peratures during cement hydration stages. Traditionally, the
validation of these models has been made with recourse to tem-
perature measurement using sensors embedded into concrete
(such as thermocouples or resistive sensors, e.g. PT100) [13–15].
Another possibility for measuring temperatures in concrete at
early ages is the use of infrared thermography, which is the scope
of the paper. This technology has been widely spread in several
practical and research applications throughout the world [16–21],
such as in medical and veterinary applications (evaluation of blood
⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +351 253 510 248; fax: +351 253 510 217.
E-mail address: miguel.azenha@civil.uminho.pt (M. Azenha).
1
Tel.: +351 22 508 1950; fax: +351 22 508 1835.
physics (thermal comfort, damages to structures) and in building
materials.
However, in the literature review performed for this research
no references were found on the use of both internal and surface
measurements of temperature fields in concrete specimens or
elements at early ages, to constitute benchmark examples for
the validation of numerical models. This is also one of the aims
of the paper, in which the infrared thermography technology is
used for monitoring the surface temperatures on a 0.40  0.40 
0.40 m3 concrete cube since casting, together with internal tem-
perature measurements provided by standard embedded sensors.
Simultaneously with this measurement campaign, the cement
hydration heat release is characterized with the technique of iso-
thermal conduction calorimetry, performed at several tempera-
tures to obtain the relevant parameters for numerical simulation.
The temperatures in the cube monitored both with thermography
and the embedded sensors will be compared with those numeri-
cally calculated using a 3D finite element (FE) thermal code
developed by the authors. In this way the numerical model predic-
tions are validated against the experimental ones, and the two

0950-0618/$ - see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2011.04.065
 M. Azenha et al. / Construction and Building Materials 25 (2011) 4232–4240
techniques for monitoring temperatures are compared, emphasis-
ing the utility of thermography.
As far as the organization of this paper is concerned, Section 2
deals with the fundamentals of the infrared thermography tech-
nique, whereas in Section 3 the developed numerical model is pre-
sented and the details on the FE implementation are described.
Section 4 is dedicated to the experimental test conducted with
the concrete cube, providing information about geometrical as-
pects, concrete composition, characterization of heat of hydration
of cement and detailing the monitoring campaign, with special
attention to the thermography technique. Simulations undertaken
with the developed numerical model are addressed in Section 5,
where numerical results are compared with the experimental
monitored temperatures. Section 6 closes the paper with the main
conclusions and future developments of the research work.
2. Infrared thermography
Infrared thermography is a technique that may be used for eval-
uating surface temperatures of objects, based on the fact that all
bodies with temperature above the absolute zero (273.15 °C)
continuously emit thermal energy within the infrared wavelength
band, which lies on the electromagnetic spectrum between visible
light and microwaves. When captured by thermography cameras
this emission is converted into an electric signal, allowing the gen-
eration of images that represent the distribution of temperatures
on the surfaces of the targeted body [22].
The emitted radiation per unit area is calculated through the
Stefan–Boltzmann equation
4
E ¼ erT
where E denotes the energy flux (W m2), r is the Stefan–Boltz-
mann constant (5.67  108 W m2 K4), e is the emissivity (de-
fined as the ratio between the thermal energies radiated by such
material and by a black body [23]), and T is the surface temperature
(K). The value of the emissivity depends on the surface temperature
T, on the observation angle h with respect to the normal to the sur-
face and on the radiation wavelength k. In the special case of solids e
changes very little with k, and for non-metallic bodies, when the
interval of temperatures is narrow and measurements are taken
with 0° < h < 60°, the emissivity may be considered constant [24].
The use of infrared thermography for monitoring temperatures
of solids presents many advantages, namely the ability to perform
real-time surface measurements without any physical contact with
the objects, which allows monitoring of transient phenomena.
However, this technique imposes that adequate precautions are ta-
ken concerning the radiation coming from spurious external
sources, and the fact that atmospheric absorption reduces the radi-
Fig. 1. Photo and corresponding thermography image captured during the casting of preplaced aggregate concrete.
4233
ation that reaches the camera; furthermore, an adequate fitting of
the emissivity of the surface under observation is needed [25].
By digitizing a thermography image a large number of pixels
and corresponding measured temperatures are available: in the
camera used for this paper resolution was of 640  480 = 307 200
pixels, which is equivalent to an equal number of temperature sen-
sors placed on the surface of the measuring target. An illustrative
example of a thermography image captured during the casting of
preplaced aggregate concrete, whilst the self-compacting mortar
is being poured over the coarse aggregates, can be seen in Fig. 1:
it is clearly distinguishable that areas with the mortar exhibit high-
er temperatures than the ones where aggregates have not yet been
reached by mortar.
Another interesting feature of thermography, useful when mon-
itoring a transient phenomenon, during which the camera and tar-
get body are still and several thermography images are taken along
time, concerns the possibility of post-processing such images and
tracing the temperature evolution at any pixel. This allows to plot
temperature versus time curves, as it will be shown in Section 4.
3. Thermal problem in hardening concrete: formulation and FE
implementation
3.1. Field equation
To compute temperatures T on a concrete structure under ther-
mal transient conditions it is necessary to account for the thermo-
dynamic equilibrium expressed by the Fourier equation
kr  ðrTÞ þ Q_ ¼ qcT_ ð2Þ
ð1Þ where Q_ is the rate of internal heat [W m3] generated by the ce-
ment hydration, and k and qc are the thermal conductivity
[W m1 K1] and the volumetric specific heat [J m3 K1] of con-
crete, respectively. Q_ plays a fundamental role on the thermal prob-
lem to be solved, and accordingly it has to be defined upon a
realistic characterization of the cement hydration heat production,
accounting for its thermally-activated nature. In this research this
goal was achieved by performing experiments on a JAF isothermal
calorimeter, which allowed to calibrate an Arrhenius law of the type
Ea
Q_ ¼ af ðaÞeRT ð3Þ
1
where Ea is the activation energy (J mol ), R is the universal gas
constant (8.314 J mol1 K1), a is the maximum value of the heat
production rate (W m3) and f(a) describes the evolution of the nor-
malized heat production rate. For numerical purposes the hydration
degree a, which expresses the extent of completion of the chemical
reactions of cement hydration, it is assumed to range from 0 (at the
instant when water is added to cement) up to 1 (when hydration
4234 M. Azenha et al. / Construction and Building Materials 25 (2011) 4232–4240

reaches the end for a given concrete mix) [26,27]. For the purposes Assuming a time integration scheme of the form t nþ1 ¼ t n þ Dt
pursued herein, and as widely accepted [26], a is viewed as the ratio between two consecutive time-steps tn and tnþ1 , together with the
between the heat released by cement until a certain instant and the approximation
total heat Qpot expected to be released upon maximum hydration.
Here Qpot was characterized experimentally on a JAF isothermal T_ nþ1 ¼ ðT nþ1  T n Þ=Dt ð7Þ
calorimeter. and writing Eq. (6) for time t nþ1 , the following equation is finally ob-
tained [31]
3.2. Boundary conditions  
C C
þ H nþ1 T nþ1 ¼ F T;nþ1 þ F Q;nþ1 þ T n ð8Þ
To solve Eq. (2) it is required that the convection-radiation con- Dt Dt
ditions on the boundaries of the concrete structure under study are where
realistically defined. Within the context of early age applications, Z 
ne
convection is essentially related to heat changes between the con- C¼ A N T qc N dX ð9Þ
crete surface and the air, due to a temperature gradient, whilst e¼1 Xe
radiation occurs due to the fact that any body with T P 0 K emits "Z #
Z
electromagnetic waves (mainly in the infrared region). For numer- ne

ical simulations of the most common problems, both phenomena
are usually accounted for together [14,28], with a convection-radi-
ation heat flux q [W m2] expressed through an equation of the
type
q ¼ hcr ðT S  T A Þ
where TS and TA are the temperatures of the concrete surface and the
air, respectively, and hcr is a convection–radiation coefficient
[W m2 K1]. Although based on a simplification resembling the
Newton cooling law [29], Eq. (4) is valid for the usual range of
temperature differences between concrete surfaces and the
environment.
In practical applications at least some of the concrete surfaces
do not contact directly with the air, since formworks, plastic covers
or wet tissues are frequently used. To better cope with these situ-
ations, where each boundary may be thought as a system of indi-
vidual material layers associated in series, an equivalent heat
transfer coefficient heq is usually defined, and used in Eq. (4) in-
stead of hcr. Such coefficient may be computed as follows [30],
!1
1 X
n
Li
heq ¼ þ ð5Þ
hcr 1
ki
where for each ith layer Li is the material thickness [m] and ki is the
corresponding thermal conductivity (the presence of hcr on the first
term within parenthesis copes for the contact of the outer layer
with the air).
3.3. FEM implementation
Using the MATLAB programming language, a computational
code based on the FEM was developed to solve Eq. (2) numerically
for 3D applications. Accordingly, within each finite element ‘e’ with
volume Oe the field variable T was approximated as a function of
the nodal temperatures T e through the equation T ¼ NT e , where
the interpolation matrix N guarantees that the Dirichlet conditions
are trivially fulfilled. Introducing this approximation in Eq. (2),
with due account to the convection-radiation Newman conditions
in boundaries Ceq , after some mathematical handling it is finally
possible to arrive to the following weak form for the thermal
equations
ne
Z Z 
A N T qc T_ dX þ rN T kr T dX
e¼1 Xe Xe
"Z Z #
ne
¼ A N T Qd_ X N T qdCq
e¼1 Xe Ceq
where the symbolic operator ‘A’ means that an assembly procedure
runs over the total number of finite elements (denoted by ‘ne’).
H nþ1 ¼ A rN T krN dX þ N T heq;nþ1 N dCq ð10Þ
e¼1 Xe Ceq
"Z #
ne
F T;nþ1 ¼ A T
N heq;nþ1 T A;nþ1 dCq ð11Þ
e¼1 Ceq
ð4Þ
ne
Z 
F Q ;nþ1 ¼ A N T Q_ nþ1 dX ð12Þ
e¼1 Xe
The format of Eq. (8) is suitable for computational implementa-
tion, with the integrals involved in the matrices and vectors de-
fined in Eqs. (9)–(12) usually computed numerically, via standard
Gauss quadratures. A remark is yet made to the fact that FQ,n+1 is
nonlinearly dependent on Tn+1, because of the thermally-activated
nature of Q_ expressed in Eq. (3). Therefore, to determine the tem-
peratures for the current time-step Eq. (8) has to be solved itera-
tively, namely via the Newton-Raphson method.
4. Experimental campaign
4.1. Geometry, experimental procedure and materials
The main purpose of this experimental campaign was to use a
concrete specimen with a large enough cement hydration temper-
ature rise to be clearly identified with thermography. A cube with
sides 0.40 m long was prepared as a commitment between a rea-
sonable cement hydration temperature rise (the more volume,
the higher temperature would be achieved) and its total weight,
so as to be handled inside the laboratory. A 1.85 cm thick form-
work was thus arranged with five wooden panels: one horizontal
for the bottom and 4 vertical for the lateral faces. The lower form-
work panel was placed on top of a wooden hollow pedestal, de-
signed to minimize its influence on the heat transfers through
this surface – see overall arrangement of formwork and pedestal
in Fig. 2 and Fig. 3b.
The experiment basically consisted of casting the specimen in-
side a climatic chamber, with a constant temperature T = 20 °C and
relative humidity RH = 50%. The specimen was then left undis-
turbed for a period of 8.6 h after casting, subsequent to which
the 4 vertical formwork panels were removed, resulting in 5 sur-
faces of the specimen in direct contact with the air.
The concrete mix used for this experiment is reproduced in
Table 1, with an initial temperature of 26 °C (checked after mix-
ing). As stated before, simulation of the temperature development
in hardening concrete calls for the necessity of characterizing the
ð6Þ exothermal chemical reactions of cement hydration. This goal
has been achieved by using a JAF isothermal calorimeter, and test-
ing the used cement (type CEM I 52.5 R) at various constant tem-
peratures of hydration: 20 °C, 30 °C, 40 °C, 50 °C and 60 °C.
Cement paste samples containing 30 g of the cement, and with a
 M. Azenha et al. / Construction and Building Materials 25 (2011) 4232–4240 4235

Table 1
Mix proportions of the concrete used in the cube.

Constituents (kg m3)

Cement (Type I 52.5R) 430.0
Limestone filler 301.5
Sand 1 339.7
Sand 2 335.0
Coarse aggregate 729.7
Water 193.4
Superplasticizer (liquid) 6.8
Cube
Camera
viewfinder
screen

pedestal

Fig. 2. View of the camera image and spatial relationship with the specimen.

water-to-cement ratio w/c = 0.45 were tested, and the obtained re-
sults in terms of heat generation rate (per 1 kg of cement) are de-
picted in Fig. 4. To estimate the heat generation of the concrete mix
per 1 m3 (the necessary input for Q_ in Eq. (6)), the generated heat
reproduced in Fig. 4 was multiplied by 430, to appropriately ac- Fig. 4. CEM I 52.5 R: heat generation rate.
count for the volumetric content of cement (see Table 1).

4.2. Setup of thermal monitoring
4.2.1. Thermography
A FLIR Systems ThermaCAM SC640 thermography camera with
a 640  480 pixel infrared imaging resolution was used in the
experiments, having an accuracy of ±2 °C. The camera was placed
at a distance of 2.5 m from the concrete cube, and 1.0 m above
its top surface, in order to allow the simultaneous visibility of three
surfaces of the specimen (see Fig. 2). The observation angles were
h  53° for the lateral surfaces and h 68° for the top surface.
Therefore, errors associated with the observation angle are not
expectable to be relevant, even for the top surface where the rec-
ommended upper limit of 60° (mentioned in Section 2) is some-
what surpassed. Therefore, concrete emissivity was assumed
constant throughout the entire experiment, with the value of
e = 0.88, which lies within the usual range considered for concrete
according to reference [32]. This e value was obtained through the
calibration of the thermography image to match the temperature
of a hardened concrete specimen placed inside the climatic
chamber at T = 20 °C. The feasibility of this constant emissivity
coefficient is further confirmed by comparing results from ther-
mography with internal sensors (see Section 4.3). The relative po-
sition between the specimen and the camera is therefore
considered adequate, both in terms of the observation angle and
the number of monitored pixels. In fact, in the 640  480 image
(307,200 pixels), the cube occupies more than 140,000 pixels,
which corresponds to more than 40000 monitoring pixels in each
surface.

(a) (b)
Fig. 3. (a) Sensor arrangement; (b) Photo of the sensors and wooden formwork (view from above).
4236 M. Azenha et al. / Construction and Building Materials 25 (2011) 4232–4240

4.2.2. Embedded temperature sensors
Temperature sensors were embedded at several locations with-
in the concrete cube, mainly in the neighbourhood of the surfaces
shot by the thermography camera. Most sensors were thermocou-
ples type K, but one PT100 sensor was used in the core of the cube,
and another PT100 was used to monitor the environmental tem-
perature (which should be constant and equal to 20 °C in the cli-
matic chamber). The overall arrangement of the sensors can be
found in the 3D depiction of Fig. 3a, where thermocouples are la-
belled as TP1 to TP25, as well as in Fig. 3b. The precise location
of each sensor can be observed in Fig. 5, where a front view and
two sections of the cube are shown (with the same XYZ referential
used in Fig. 3a). The sensors were supported by thermally insulated
wires, which in turn were attached to the wooden formwork of the
specimen. The physical arrangement of this setup can be observed
in Fig. 3b. All sensors were connected to an automatic data acqui-
sition system DATATAKER DT515. The acquisition rate for the
temperature sensors was set constant throughout the whole
experiment, with one acquisition every 5 min. The total period of
measurements was of 1.2 days, initiated simultaneously with the
casting operations. However, due to a unknown cause, the moni-
toring system yielded no results for the period between
0 h 15 min and 3 h 40 min. For such reason, all the plots regarding
temperature sensors in this paper are empty in such period
(0.01-0.15 days).
4.3. Monitored temperatures
4.3.1. Temperature sensors
A global overview of the results obtained with some relevant
temperature sensors (TP3, TP7, TP9, TP18, TP19 and TP21) can be
found in Fig. 6. Bearing in mind such results, some general

Fig. 5. Three views of the sensor arrangement [units: mm].

Fig. 6. Experimental and numerical temperatures.

 M. Azenha et al. / Construction and Building Materials 25 (2011) 4232–4240 4237

comments can be made at this point. The reported initial temper- feasible to have higher temperatures with embedded thermocou-
ature of concrete of 26 °C can be confirmed at all sensors (after an ples than with thermography, especially when internal tempera-
initial 20 °C temperature related to the chamber environment). The tures are higher. In view of what has been stated, it can be
maximum recorded temperature occurred at the age of 7.2 h, considered that both the measurement techniques (thermocouples
reaching 55.2 °C in the centre of the specimen (sensor TP18), which and thermography) have successfully validated each other.
corresponds to a temperature rise of 29.2 °C in regard to the start-
ing temperature of 26 °C. The maximum recorded temperature
5. Numerical simulations
gradient occurred between sensors TP18 (in the core) and TP19
(near the upper corner of the specimen), with a value of 20.9 °C
5.1. Modelling geometry and parameters
at the age of 7 h (0.29 days). Furthermore, the expectable tendency
of higher temperatures in areas near the core versus lower temper-
For the numerical thermal model of the 0.40  0.40  0.40 m3
atures near the surfaces was confirmed, and it took about 1 day for
concrete cube, and bearing in mind the existence of two symmetry
all the sensors to return to the environmental room temperature of
planes, only one-fourth of it was modelled (0.20  0.20  0.40 m3),
20 °C. Still regarding the results plotted in Fig. 6, a discontinuity in
according to Fig. 8. The adopted 3D discretization is based on the
the slope of temperature diagrams for sensors near the lateral sur-
faces was observed at the age of 0.36 days (particularly sensors
TP3, TP7, TP9 and TP19), coinciding with the instant at which the
lateral wooden formwork panels were removed, causing a sudden
increase in the boundary transfers, as expected.

4.3.2. Thermography
In view of the capacity of post-processing the images from ther-
mography to obtain the time evolution of temperature at any spe-
cific pixel, as mentioned in Section 2, comparisons can be made
between the embedded thermocouple results and the correspond-
ing monitored temperatures with thermography (based on the
nearest pixel of the image).
Such a comparison is made in Fig. 7a for sensor TP9, located
5 mm deep with respect to the centre of a vertical surface of the
cube (see Fig. 3a). Comments about this figure are divided in two
phases, with the first pertaining to the period before removal of
the vertical formwork panels (i.e., until the age of t = 0.36 days),
and the second phase regarding the period that follows. During
the first phase, whilst sensor TP9 is really monitoring the temper- Fig. 8. Planes of symmetry and FE mesh adopted for one-fourth of the cube.
ature in concrete, the camera is measuring the temperature on the
formwork surface, which explains the quite different evolution of
the T-t curve provided by thermography with respect to the one 1
defined by sensor TP9. Conversely, during the second phase (after a =5.1829×1011W m-3
formwork removal) the thermography camera measures a pixel 0.8 E a =4.751 kJ mol -1
temperature at almost the same location as sensor TP9, being both Q pot =1.6475×108J m-3
T-t curves practically coincident (the thermography curve is 0.6
f (α)

slightly lower, as in fact it is a surface temperature).

In Fig. 7b a similar comparison of the T–t evolutions obtained 0.4
through thermocouple measurement and thermography is pre-
sented for the location of sensor TP21 (top surface). In this case, 0.2
corresponding to a surface where no formwork is used, both tech-
niques yield similar results throughout the entire period of mea- 0
surements, even though differences between thermocouples and 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
thermography measurements are slightly larger than observed α
for sensor TP9. It should be remembered that a surface measure-
Fig. 9. Arrhenius law for the studied concrete.
ment is being compared to an internal measurement; so, it is

(a) (b)
Fig. 7. Temperature measured from thermocouples and the corresponding surface point (using thermography): (a) TP9; (b) TP21.
4238 M. Azenha et al. / Construction and Building Materials 25 (2011) 4232–4240

use of 8-noded isoparametric FE for the concrete, with an average
volume of 1.67 cm3 each, which renders a quite refined mesh in the
vicinity of the external surfaces, where the majority of temperature
measurements were made. For the surface boundaries 4-noded FE
were considered.
the embedded temperature sensors during the casting operations.
For the Arrhenius law regarding the internal heat generation due to
cement hydration, the data reproduced in Fig. 9 were considered
with basis on the calorimetry experiments documented in Section
4.1.

5.1.1. Concrete properties 5.1.2. Boundary conditions

The thermal conductivity and specific heat of concrete were For the case of concrete in direct contact with the environment
considered to have respectively the values k = 2.6 W m1 K1 and a value of heq = 10 W m1 K1 was considered, in correspondence
qc = 2400 J m3 K1. The initial temperature for concrete was con- to near stagnant air conditions. This value has been proved before,
sidered to be 26 °C, as indicated by the monitored temperatures on with basis on experiments conducted in a wind tunnel on a heated

t = 0.21 days

t = 0.37 days

t = 0.41 days

t = 0.51 days
Fig. 10. Temperature contours: measured from thermography (left) and numerical predictions (right) [units: °C].
 M. Azenha et al. / Construction and Building Materials 25 (2011) 4232–4240
Fig. 10 (continued)
concrete specimen, monitored with heat flux sensors [33]. At the
faces where 1.85 cm thick wooden formwork panels exist between
concrete and the air heq was computed assuming a thermal con-
ductivity of 0.20 W m1 K1 for the wood:
 1
1 0:0185
heq ¼ þ ¼ 5:2 Wm1 K1
10 0:2
Therefore, in accordance to the experimental procedure: (i) the
bottom boundary of the cube was simulated with heq = 5.2
W m1 K1 during the whole analysis, (ii) the top boundary was
modelled with the constant value heq = 10 W m1 K1, and (iii)
the vertical boundaries were reproduced with heq = 5.2 W m1 K1
until the age of 8.6 h, and heq = 10 W m1 K1 from then onwards.
In the symmetry planes, adiabatic boundaries were considered.
Solar radiation was disregarded, as the cube was placed inside an
indoor climatic chamber.
5.2. Numerical predictions and comparison with monitored
temperatures
Numerical predictions from the FE thermal model will be
compared first, in terms of temperature contours, with the results
obtained from thermography. This provides a simultaneous confir-
mation of the numerical and experimental temperatures for all the
surface points, and for a set of relevant instants, as reproduced in
Fig. 10. For the particular case of t = 0.21 days, and since the form-
work had not yet been removed, thermography reproduces the
temperatures on the visible faces of the vertical wooden form-
works, exposed to the air. These may not be compared to the
results of the numerical model, as the latter pertain to tempera-
tures on the surface of concrete. Regarding the top horizontal sur-
face of the concrete cube, where results can be compared, it can be
seen that the numerical model slightly overestimates the temper-
atures at the middle. Still regarding Fig. 10, and concerning the
4239
t = 0.61 days
t = 0.93 days
instants from t = 0.37 days until t = 0.93 days, an excellent match
between the numerical predictions and the thermography mea-
surements may be found for all the vertical surfaces, both in terms
of temperature values and shape of temperature contours.
In the top surface of the specimen there is a systematic overes-
timation of temperatures by the numerical model, when compared
ð13Þ
to the thermography images. The reason for these discrepancies is
most likely related to the boundary conditions of the model in this
zone: this top surface is the only horizontal surface in direct con-
tact with the environment, and it is known from heat transfer sci-
ence that, in the absence of wind, the buoyancy forces can play a
significant role, when compared to the convective ones [34]. In
fact, for a horizontal surface the air right above is heated by the
surface and it rises, causing a further renovation of air and engen-
dering higher heq coefficients, the latter becoming non-linearly
dependent on the surface temperature [29]. This buoyancy phe-
nomenon also occurs on vertical surfaces, even though not as
strongly as in horizontal surfaces (particularly as in the present
case, where vertical formworks were in place until the age of
0.36 days).
The temperatures predicted by the numerical model can also be
compared in Fig. 6 with the measurements made by thermocou-
ples TP3, TP7, TP9, TP18, TP19 and TP21. From an engineering point
of view it can be considered that the numerical predictions for the
T-t evolutions match quite closely the ones measured by the ther-
mocouples, although with smaller accuracy for the sensors located
near the top surface (TP19 and TP21). A possible reason for the
deviations observed in the initial phases of sensors TP19 and
TP21 was already discussed above.
As a concluding remark, it should be stressed that in spite of the
reported differences at the top horizontal surface, in terms of tem-
peratures the obtained numerical/monitored coherences are quite
satisfactory. It is also noteworthy to mention that the richness of
information provided by the thermography images allow quick,
intuitive and real-time awareness of the overall temperature state
4240 M. Azenha et al. / Construction and Building Materials 25 (2011) 4232–4240
of the studied body, which is an important asset for the study of
concrete structures at early ages.
6. Conclusion
The paper aimed to reach two main objectives: (i) to use the
experimental technique of thermography for monitoring concrete
temperatures during hydration of cement, checking its feasibility
for this kind of applications; (ii) to use the obtained results for
the validation of the implemented FE code for prediction of tem-
perature development in concrete structures at early ages,
accounting for the influence of cement heat of hydration.
A concrete specimen with dimensions 0.40  0.40  0.40 m3
was cast, and its temperature development was simultaneously
monitored by embedded temperature sensors and by a thermogra-
phy camera. The coherence between the data collected using the
two different measuring techniques allowed strong confidence in
the results obtained through thermography for hardening con-
crete. This technique reveals a strong potential, as the image col-
lected at each instant from a concrete element is in fact a
snapshot of the surface temperatures monitored at all the pixels
(e.g. 640  480 = 307,200, in the used camera). Such richness of
information about the temperature distribution in concrete sur-
faces cannot be obtained using other conventional temperature
sensors, and therefore the thermography technique has a strong
potential for in situ applications. However, it has the drawback of
needing ‘‘visual contact’’ with concrete, being incapable of afford-
ing temperature measurements through frequent obstacles such
as scaffolds, formworks or curing burlaps.
Measurements obtained with the thermography equipment, to-
gether with embedded temperature sensors, were used for the val-
idation of the implemented FE thermal code. Generally speaking,
both the thermal contours and the temperature versus time evolu-
tion curves obtained numerically reproduced rather closely the
monitored results. Less accuracy was however obtained in the
numerical predictions of temperatures for the horizontal surfaces
in contact with the air, where buoyancy driven heat exchanges
may play non negligible roles.
Acknowledgements
Funding provided by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and
Technology (FCT) to the Research Projects POCI/ECM/56458/2004
and PTDC/ECM/099250/2008, as well as to the first and second
authors through PhD grants BD/13137/2003 and BD/25123/2005
is gratefully acknowledged. It is also acknowledged funding pro-
vided by FCT to the Research Units ISISE and LABEST, where the
presented research was undertaken.
The help of Mr. António Cardoso and of the company ‘‘MRA
Instrumentação’’, facilitating the use of the thermography camera,
is also deeply acknowledged.
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