Research on the Influence of Concrete Shrinkage on the Stress Behavior of Bridge Piers

Concrete shrinkage is the key factor affecting the mechanical properties of continuous rigid bridge, especially on the bridge piers. Taking the Tianning Gully Bridge as the engineering background, the influence of concrete shrinkage on the stress behaviour of bridge piers was studied in the present work. Abutment height and cross-section size, which were considerd as the most significant impact factors on the abutment stiffness, were selected as control variables and the variable parameters of the whole bridge were analyzed. The results showed that the concrete shrinkage effect was more sensitive to the stiffness of the abutment, which increased with the increase of abutment stiffness, showing a parabolic trend. Concrete shrinkage on the double-limbed pier stress was slightly larger than the single-limbed pier, when the pier height was less than 60 m, this trend was more obvious. When the pier height was greater than 120 m, the level of influence on the two tends to be the same.