Study on Seismic Design and Behaviour of the Integral Abutment

Abstract

The integral abutment bridge (IAB) has been regarded as an efficient and effective seismic design in bridge structures by many civil engineers in recent years. In this paper, some advantages of IAB are shown. By comparing with the traditional abutments, the design of IAB can save the cost of those expansion devices in both the construction phase and maintenance phase. Moreover, the seismic performance of IAB is proved to be better for its unique advantages such as increasing integrity by cancelling the expansion joints and bearings, reducing the backfilling pressure, and limiting the rotation. Therefore, the application of IAB has been spread in many countries, especially in America. However, this paper also conducts some problems in the field of IAB which can be regarded as the potential research direction. The first is the delay of IAB’s application in China and the corresponding urgent requirement. The second is the absence of a unified specification. And the last is that the advanced-performance piles in the integral abutment are expensive. The information presented in this paper aims to help arise and expand the relative emphasis and research in the field of IAB.