The development of cracks in the concrete cover of steel reinforcement represents one of the key phenomena influencing the service life of reinforced concrete structures. In this contribution, material damage due to drying shrinkage is thoroughly analyzed using an extensive set of experiments on concrete beams exposed to various drying conditions [1]. All experiments were performed on samples prepared from an identical concrete batch but differed in the dimensions of samples and sealing setup. Few repetitions of specific experiments prohibit eliminating the measurement noise sufficiently. Thus, the inverse analysis requires to be performed in a robust probabilistic way, allowing to combine the noisy data from all experiments simultaneously. Bayesian inference is an ideal framework for solving such a complex inverse analysis as a well-posed problem. It provides not only a single-point estimate of the material parameters but also an evaluation of the underlying uncertainty in the estimated values reflecting the experimental error (i.e., the uncertainty in the observed quantities) on one side and also the uncertain prior expert knowledge about the parameter feasible or more probable values. The main drawback of Bayesian inference arises from its high computational requirements due to repeated FE-based simulations. This computational burden is partially mitigated by using a low-fidelity FE-model of coupled hygro-mechanical behavior based on modified Microprestress-solidification theory [2] with the damage extension and the model for moisture transport proposed by Kuenzel. An additional acceleration is further achieved by constructing its sparse polynomial chaos-based surrogates providing a fast and elegant way to evaluate the global variance-based sensitivity analysis. This allows us to analyze and better understand the key shrinkage parameters and cracks development due to drying. REFERENCES [1] P. Havlásek et al. Shrinkage-induced deformations and creep of structural concrete: 1-year measurements and numerical prediction, Cem Concr Res, Vol. 144, 106402 (2021). [2] Z. Bažant, P. Havlásek, M. Jirásek Microprestress-solidification theory: Modeling of size effect on drying creep, in: Comp. Model. of Concr. Struct. - Proc. of EURO-C 2014, St. Anton am Arlberg, 749–758 (2014).