Structural Behaviour of Metakaolin Geopolymer Concrete Wall-Type Abutments with Connected Wing Walls

Abstract

This study work is related to exploring the role of connected wing walls in changing the behaviour of a metakaolin geopolymer wall type abutment when acted upon by all the forces that are generally applied on a short-span bridge. The modelling of abutment with connected wing walls is done using the STAAD Pro V8i SS6 software and all the loading applied for the analysis as per IRC: 6-2016. The modelling is done using the 4-noded plate elements for all the members, and the plate elements here are meshed using the quadrilateral meshing feature. The behaviour of the metakaolin geopolymer wall-type abutment is analyzed using various models with changing the basic parameters such as length of the wing walls, height of the walls, number of lanes on the bridge, and type of live load on the bridge. The various results are obtained in the form of bending moments from all the cases, which show us some really interesting behaviour of the abutment wall and the wing walls. As the length of the wing walls is increased, they take up more horizontal moments than the abutment wall and the deflection behaviour of the wing walls is way different than that of cantilever wall, and hence, it shows that the design aspects of the wing walls need to be checked. Also, the connected wing walls cause horizontal moments in the middle of the abutment wall, which is an interesting result; as now, it proves that after casting wing walls monolithically to the abutment wall, the design of the abutment wall cannot be done as cantilever wall, and we need to take care of this horizontal moment by providing required reinforcement. Also, as the length of the wing walls is short, the torsional moments become critical.