Behavior of Concrete Integral Abutment Bridges

Integral abutment bridges have been increasing in popularity over the past 30 years due to low construction and maintenance cost and good earthquake resistance. However, their behavior is not fully understood with respect to thermal movements, time-dependent response, soil-structure interaction, and skew effects. In order to quantify--and predict--those conditions, researchers monitored a prestressed concrete Integral Abutment bridge from initial fabrication through seven seasonal cycles.