Numerical Analysis of Heat Transfer on a Concrete Retaining Wall with Defects

Based on the establishment of the wall model with fixed orientation and date by ABAQUS finite element numerical analysis software, this paper studied the surface temperature change rule of the concrete retaining wall with different deep, high and thick defects. To the concrete retaining wall with different defect depth, if defect depth was relative shallow, the wall surface temperature corresponding defect area rose sharply, while the temperature influence of the non-defective area was lesser; with the depth increasing, the wall surface temperature and temperature difference corresponding defect area decreased, and the temperature curve became smooth. To the concrete retaining wall with different defect height, at the beginning stage, the temperature difference was small between the inner surface and the outer surface of the wall; after a steady state analysis, the thermal resistance corresponding defect area was larger than non-defect area; with solar radiation increasing, surface temperature difference was rising between defect area and non-defect area. To the concrete retaining wall with different defect thickness, if the defect thickness was thin (≤6c), the defect thickness had great influence on the maximum temperature difference of the wall surface; but with the defect thickness increasing, the temperature difference of the wall surface became consistent. This will contributed to the analysis to find out the distribution of the defect location, the defect size and the defect depth, and also provide theoretical basis for infrared thermal imaging technology in the application of the concrete retaining wall detection.