Interaction of Integral Abutment Piling and Mechanically Stabilized Earth (MSE) Walls

About the project:

The Virginia Department of Transportation designs and contracts for construction of bridges with abutments built integral with the superstructure and the foundation piling extending through the backfill of mechanically stabilized earth (MSE) walls.   As an integral bridge contracts and expands with daily and seasonal temperature fluctuations, the abutment piles move toward and away from the MSE wall facing.  VDOT engineers have expressed concern that bridge contraction could impose large loads on the wall facing and the reinforcing strips.  Such loads could break the connections between the reinforcing strips and the wall facing, and they conceivably could damage the wall facing.  The outcome of this research will produce simple and practical recommendations to determine design details of abutments in MSE wall backfill, such as the clear spacing that should be provided between abutment piles and the MSE wall facing, with and without use of a synthetic compressible inclusion

Project Team

Co-Principal Investigators

Other Investigators