Crack spacing of reinforced concrete

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these messages) This article's lead section may be too short to adequately summarize the key points. Please consider expanding the lead to provide an accessible overview of all important aspects of the article. (July 2012) This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (June 2020) (Learn how and when to remove this message) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Concrete is a brittle material and can only withstand small amount of tensile strain due to stress before cracking. When a reinforced concrete member is put in tension, after cracking, the member elongates by widening of cracks and by formation of new cracks.

Ignoring the small elastic strain in the concrete between the cracks, we can relate the crack width to the strain of the member by:

${\displaystyle {w}_{m}=\epsilon _{cf}s_{m}}$