FEM Analysis of Integral Abutment Bridges with Fixed and Pinned Pile Head Connection
The comparative study on the effect of pile head connection with abutment on integral abutment bridges is presented in this paper. The influence on the design parameters such as bending moment, shear force and longitudinal stresses in deck slab has been considered. The study demonstrates that the design parameters are affected by the pile head to abutment connection. In addition, the results of DL (Dead Load) + temperature and DL + LL (Live Load) + temperature combination with varying span numbers have been compared with single span and with DL. Similarly the effect on interior and exterior girder has also been studied. In case of only DL, the negative maximum end Bending Moment (BM) reduced by 10.5% in the case of single span, 28.5% in two spans integral abutment bridge, while no change is observed in three spans of the integral abutment bridge. The positive BM, however, showed an increasing trend. An interesting outcome of the study is an inversely proportional relation between the number of spans and the design parameters. The increase in temperature tends to enhances negative BM and decreases positive BM. Furthermore, the SF in deck slab increased by 5.9% in two spans integral abutment bridge having pile head with pinned connection, however no change is observed in SF in single and three span configurations.
