Since 1970s, though many effective construction methods have been established to solve soft ground problems which had occurred in the off shore land reclamation and on shore highway construction, lateral movement of structure on soft ground is still a big problem to engineers. In this study an applicability of criteria for determining the lateral movement of the structure in soft ground is examined and most measured data is obtained from 140 bridge abutments in highway construction sites. Characteristics and effectiveness of existing methods that used for deciding amount of lateral movements of abutment are analyzed using the obtained data. From the analysis, a proper method to prevent lateral movement is proposed. This method is confirmed on several case histories which were constructed on marine clay.

Since 1970s, though many effective construction methods have been established to solve soft ground problems which had occurred in the off shore land reclamation and on shore highway construction, lateral movement of structure on soft ground is still a big problem to engineers. In this study an applicability of criteria for determining the lateral movement of the structure in soft ground is examined and most measured data is obtained from 140 bridge abutments in highway construction sites. Characteristics and effectiveness of existing methods that used for deciding amount of lateral movements of abutment are analyzed using the obtained data. From the analysis, a proper method to prevent lateral movement is proposed. This method is confirmed on several case histories which were constructed on marine clay.