ABSTRACT
This first chapter will provide the reader with a certain amount of background material to better understand the underlying principles of concrete, AAR, heat transfer and finite element method (FEM).
First section will review concrete, then the second will broadly describe AAR: its definition, causes of swelling, onset, and consequences. A succinct description of the most prevalent tests will also be discussed. This will be followed by a brief review of the finite element method (part of which is important to properly grasp the subtleties of the AAR model presented in the next chapter). Because temperature is a key factor governing the AAR expansion, a separate section is devoted to a brief review of heat transfer. Finally,we will address the various approaches to a numerical simulation of AAR through the FEM. Two radically different philosophies have been proposed for this modeling set-up, both of which will be outlined and presented with reference to the major existing models: what are the advantages and disadvantages of each approach, and how is the method presented in this book positioned with respect to other models?
