Abstract: Geosynthetics reinforced soil flexible abutment composite structure, as a new technology, can realise the integrated design and construction for bridges. However, the literature on the seismic performance of this structure is very limited. This paper is to study the seismic performance of a scaled model of geosynthetic reinforced soil abutment structure by the shaking table test. Experimental results showed that the geosynthetic reinforced soil abutment structure had excellent seismic performance, which could maintain great global stability under strong earthquakes until the peak ground acceleration reached 1.0g. There was only a small camber deformation found at the top of the abutment, and the maximum deformation was around 2% of the abutment height. The slight differential settlement was also observed at the bridgehead. Due to the directionality and asymmetry of the seismic excitation, the inertial forces pointing to the free surface of the abutments on both sides were different. The bridge beam could transfer and coordinate the inertial forces of the nearby reinforced soil and made it approximately equal. In addition, reducing the reinforcement spacing was beneficial to improving the seismic performance of the geosynthetic reinforced soil abutment, which was mainly manifested in minimising the structural deformation and distributing the axial forces of reinforcements.

Key words: reinforced soil, geosynthetic reinforced soil(GRS), flexible abutment, shaking table test, seismic performance