The use of fibre reinforcement has become a popular alternative to traditional steel mesh in industrial floors for the control of early age shrinkage. However, there are no generally accepted standards for the design of the jointless floors, only guidelines. One of the most well-known guidelines for industrial floors is the British guideline: TR 34 – Concrete Industrial Ground Floors. In the 4th edition the calculation method of early age shrinkage was totally omitted, and the document limits itself to simply stating that cracks could be avoided if the concrete mix design, curing time and dilatation distances are appropriate and well designed. Our research is about the comparison of the early age effect of plain, steel or synthetic macro fibre reinforced concretes with beam test series at different ages: 9-14-24 hours and 7 and 28 days. The results of these tests were implemented into an advanced Finite Element Analysis, with a time-dependent material model which enabled the simulation of the effect of the fibres on the crack propagation during the hardening of the concrete in an industrial floor. The connection to the subbase was modelled with different interface elements to model the slip effect. Results show clearly the difference between plain, steel and synthetic fibre reinforced concrete materials.
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