Integral abutment bridges (IABs) have been constructed by State Departments of Transportation for a number of years. These bridges have been found to be cost effective from both an initial cost and life-cycle cost analysis. However, common design guidelines are lacking and non-uniform limitations on IAB design are imposed by different agencies. In order to evaluate design guidelines, the Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans) has initiated a program of field instrumentation and analysis to evaluate the performance of three IABs currently under construction. The research components are being conducted by the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Three bridges are included, a straight bridge with 43 m (141 ft) span, a 15 degree skew bridge with 37 m (121 ft) span, and a curved two-span continuous structure with 11.25 degrees of curvature and 68 m (221 ft) total bridge length. The bridges are instrumented with 83, 89, and 131 gages, respectively. Instrumentation includes strain gages, pressure cells, displacement transducers, inclinometers, tiltmeters and thermistors. This dissertation describes the project scope, the bridge details and instrumentation of these sites, the finite element modeling scheme, the results of monitoring during construction and live load testing as well as the long-term monitoring for cyclic thermal loads with finite element modeling comparison.
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