Concrete hydration heat inhibitor can inhibit the early hydration reaction of concrete and reduce the initial heat release of concrete. However, there is no in‐depth research on the effect of hydration heat inhibitor on hydraulic structures with different thicknesses and constraints. In this paper, numerical simulation is used to study the change of temperature and stress field after adding hydration heat inhibitor by establishing the finite element models of tunnel lining, sluice, and gravity dam. The results show that the effect of the hydration heat inhibitors on reducing the temperature peak is inversely proportional to the thickness of the structure. A formula is put forward to evaluate their relation in this paper. When the thickness of the structure is about 6 m, there is no peak cutting effect. For the stress field, hydration heat inhibitor can greatly reduce the thermal stress of the thin‐walled structure and make the structure meet the temperature control requirements; for the medium wall thickness structure, it can reduce the internal tensile stress about 50% and the surface tensile stress about 20%, and other temperature control measures are still needed to ensure that the surface tensile stress of the structure meets the requirements; for hydraulic structures with large volume and thickness, the application effect of the inhibitor has limitations, which can reduce the internal tensile stress about 30%, but the tensile stress in the surface area will increase about 7% due to the increase of the internal and external temperature difference; therefore, other temperature control measures such as arranging cooling water pipe, strengthening surface insulation, and so on are needed to ensure that temperature cracks do not occur. This paper provides references and suggestions for the research and engineering application of hydration heat inhibitor.