Impact of the Employed Soil Model on the Predicted Behaviour of Integral Abutment Bridges

Hany El Naggar

In the proceedings of: GeoVancouver 2016: 69th Canadian Geotechnical Conference

Session: INFRASTRUCTURE - II Highways & Bridges

ABSTRACT: Integral Abutment Bridges (IAB) are structures in which both of the superstructure and the substructure move together into and away from the backfill to accommodate translations and rotations. These bridges have no expansion joints and no bearings. Integral abutment bridges are characterized by their complex soil-structure interaction of the abutment walls and foundations as they are subjected to cyclic loading on a daily and seasonal basis. The Mohr-Coulomb (MC) soil model is an elastic-perfectly plastic model, which is often used to model soil behaviour in general and serves as a first-order model. Several researchers have used the MC soil model in the modelling of IAB due to its simplicity and minimum required information. However, as the backfill soil of such bridges is subjected to a loading-unloading-reloading process during which the stiffness of the soils keeps on changing, the soil stress-strain behavior is not linear and the linear elastic perfectly plastic Mohr-Coulomb model is not able to accurately describe the behavior of the soil during the unloading-reloading process. Consequently, a more advanced soil model such as the Hardening soil model is more appropriate. This paper investigates the impact of the employed soil model on the predicted stresses in the soil available field data for an integral abutment bridge in New Brunswick to assess the predictability of each of the used soil models.

RÉSUMÉ: Les ponts à culées intégrales sont des structures où la superstructure et la substructure bet -structure complexe de la cul Le modèle Mohr-Coulomb (MC) est un modèle élastique parfaitement plastique qui est utilisé pour modéliser le comportement du sol et il sert de modèle de première-ordre. Plusieurs chercheurs ont utilisé le modèle MC pour la PCI est sujet à un processus de chargement-déchargement-rechargement, la rigidité du sol varie. Le comportement contrainte-du sol lors du processus de chargement-déchargement-rechargement. Conséquemment, un modèle plus sophistiqué tel prédites sur le massif et sur les poussées de terre contre la culée. Les résultats sont comparés avec des données de -Brunswick.

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