Abstract: Both visible and invisible cracks are common in the sluices. As a result, it is normal for a sluice with cracks under operatin conditions. When affected by the cold waves, the microscopic cracks in the sluice that already exist would connect, extend, and even run through the sluices, which would seriously affect the safety and durability of the sluices. An extended finite element method （XFEM）can make the characterization of discontinuous displacement field independent of the cell boundaries by enriching discontinuous displacement mode on the influence domain of the related nodes. Based on the extended finite element (XFEM) and a heat-mechanical coupling method, the authors of this article have made studies of sluice’s gradual cracking failure process under different initial temperatures, different temperature drop ranges and durations of the cold waves. Compared with the actual cracking situation in a practical work, that the numerical computation agrees well with the real cracking situation. The analysis results indicate that when the sluice is affected by the cold waves, the temperature near its surface is approximate with the change of environment temperature; on the contrary, in the center section of the sluice there is no great changes in temperature. The gate pier’s inside and outside temperature difference increases with the increases in the cold waves. The basic reason of cracking in the sluices is the combination of the inside temperature differences with their constraints. The cracks appear at the place where the gate pier links the floor, and with the augmentation of the cold waves, the angle, the length and the depth between the crack and the bottom also increase, which would be much more unfavorable to the gate pier. Therefore, it is necessary to make a good job of safety monitoring and protection for the gate pier to control cracks in the piers caused by temperature drop before the cold waves’ coming.