Abstract：The cracking problem of high abutment is important in highway construction. Four U-shaped abutment models are built with clay bricks for the contrast study of failure mechanism. There are three models with different structural stiffeners and one is the model of common abutment. When these abutment models are loaded by filling with soil and applying vertically external forces on the surface of the filled soil，the horizontal displacements of the front wall and side wall of the models are measured by dial indicators. Through the contrast analysis of measured displacement and 3D numerical results for four models，a very obvious effect caused by the stiffeners in the abutment model is obtained. The crack loads of the abutment structure with the stiffeners will be improved obviously than the common abutment. If the inside chamfer of the abutment and U-shaped stiffeners are all adopted in an abutment model，the crack loads will be improved more than one time.
