Abutments and Retaining Structures Introduction Abutments Abutment Types • General Design Considerations • Seismic Design Considerations • Miscellaneous Design Considerations • Design Example 29 Linan Wang California Transportation Department Retaining Structures Retaining Structure Types • Design Criteria • Cantilever Retaining Wall Design Example • Tieback Wall • Reinforced Earth-Retaining Structure • Seismic Consideration for Retaining Structures Chao Gong ICF Kaiser Engineers, Inc. Introduction As a component of a bridge, the abutment provides the vertical support to the bridge superstructure at the bridge ends, connects the bridge with the approach roadway, and retains the roadway base materials from the bridge spans | Wang L. Gong C. Abutments and Retaining Structures. Bridge Engineering Handbook. Ed. Wai-Fah Chen and Lian Duan Boca Raton CRC Press 2000 29 Abutments and Retaining Structures Linan Wang California Transportation Department Chao Gong ICF Kaiser Engineers Inc. Introduction Abutments Abutment Types General Design Considerations Seismic Design Considerations Miscellaneous Design Considerations Design Example Retaining Structures Retaining Structure Types Design Criteria Cantilever Retaining Wall Design Example Tieback Wall Reinforced Earth-Retaining Structure Seismic Consideration for Retaining Structures Introduction As a component of a bridge the abutment provides the vertical support to the bridge superstructure at the bridge ends connects the bridge with the approach roadway and retains the roadway base materials from the bridge spans. Although there are numerous types of abutments and the abutments for the important bridges may be extremely complicated the analysis principles and design methods are very similar. In this chapter the topics related to the design of conventional highway bridge abutments are discussed and a design example is illustrated. Unlike the bridge abutment the earth-retaining structures are mainly designed for sustaining lateral earth pressures. Those structures have been widely used in highway construction. In this chapter several types of retaining structures are presented and a design example is also given. Abutments Abutment Types Open-End and Closed-End Abutments From the view of the relation between the bridge abutment and roadway or water flow that the bridge overcrosses bridge abutments can be divided into two categories open-end abutment and closed-end abutment as shown in Figure . For the open-end abutment there are slopes between the bridge abutment face and the edge of the roadway or river canal that the bridge overcrosses. Those slopes provide a wide open area for the traffic flows or water .
