Abstract: Alternate variation in ambient temperature around water freezing point would cause serious physical damages to concrete structure, such as crack, breakage and surface scaling, and would affect concrete’s mechanics performance or even results in the loss of concrete’s practical function. Cyclic freeze-thaw has been recognized as one of the most primary factors leading to concrete deterioration, and therefore the prediction of concrete’s service life under freeze-thaw damage has become a research priority. The definition of concrete’s service life varies with its specific function, and accordingly researchers have developed some basic methods and evaluation criteria to predict its life-span. Significant progress has been achieved in this area, manifested not only by more intensive studies on the mechanisms and the models of single freeze-thaw factor damage, but also by more extensive researches on service life prediction under the impact of coupling action of freeze-thaw cycles in combination with other environmental and mechanical factors. Moreover, computer programming together with mathematical simulation techniques is playing an increasingly important role in the research on service life prediction, and could be adopted to direct the durability design according to the requirement of expected time-in-service.

Key words: concrete, service life, freeze-thaw damage, prediction model