Evaluation on the behavior of abutment–pile connection in integral abutment bridge

Abstract

Integral abutment bridges can reduce the amount and cost of construction and maintenance work since they do not have expansion joints and shoes in order to increase stability and durability of the bridges’ system. Integral abutment bridges normally have single-row H-pile systems to resist the behaviors under service loading conditions such as thermal loading. In order to transfer member forces between abutments and H-pile, the abutment–pile connection in the integral abutment bridge should have rigid behavior. Therefore, the installation of reinforcing bars and minimum installed length of the piles in the concrete abutment are required to resist bearing force and deformation caused by shear forces and bending moments. This study examines the abutment–pile connections in the integral abutment bridge to improve the shear and bearing resistance of concrete abutment and constructability of abutment–pile connections for the single-row H-pile system with weak axis. Three types of new abutment–pile connections are proposed in this study. They feature transverse reinforcing bars perforated in H-pile, stud connectors, and perfobond rib connectors on the flange of H-pile, respectively. They are intended to increase the stiffness and strength so that they will better resist the bearing force caused by deformations and rotations at abutment H-pile concrete. Loading tests and FE analysis were conducted to evaluate the stiffness and behaviors of proposed connections for half scale abutment–H-pile connection specimens. From the test results, proposed abutment–H-pile connections were evaluated to secure sufficient stiffness, rotational stiffness, and bearing strength.