5. CONCLUSIONS

To produce long lasting durable concrete, early-age cracking must be minimized. Unfortunately, many of the recent trends toward higher early-age strengths also result in an increased propensity for early-age cracking. As demonstrated in this paper, the concrete materials engineer has numerous options available as mitigation strategies. In each case, a basic understanding of the underlying physical phenomena will aid the engineer in either selecting appropriate materials or adapting the structural design to control cracking due to autogenous shrinkage. Many of the proposed mitigation strategies are still in their infancy and must yet be evaluated in terms of effectiveness, robustness, ease of implementation, and effects on durability. The tremendous need to produce crack-free concrete, however, will surely greatly expedite this evaluation process.