Behavior of integral abutment bridges considering seasonal temperature at construction completion

Seasonal temperature-induced cyclic displacements impose repetitive stresses and cumulative deformations on the backfill behind integral abutment bridges, adversely impacting the serviceability of the integral abutment bridge (IAB). In this study, reduced-scale IAB models were conducted to investigate the behavior of IAB under seasonal temperature changes considering the influence of construction completion seasons. Four different completion seasons were simulated using different loading modes. Test results demonstrate that backfill settlements, lateral earth pressures, and earth pressure coefficients increase significantly as the cycle loading progresses despite the small amplitude of horizontal strain. The lateral earth pressures are the highest when the construction is completed in winter, lowest when it is completed in summer, and approximately similar for completion in spring and autumn. Considering an annual effective bridge temperature variation of 45 °C, the residual peak lateral earth pressure coefficient after 100th cycle for construction completion in winter is 1.87.