Research Areas and Research Achievements of Bridge Engineering

Research Area 1:New Structures, New Materials and Design Theories

1) New Structures and New Materials: The department has developed the new structures of suspension bridges with separated towers and girders, long-span railway cable-stayed bridges with steel and concrete hybrid box girders, the structures of concrete-filled steel tubular latticed columns with ultra-high piers, the steel-concrete composite bridge decks of concrete sheets connected with PBLs, large longitudinal rib orthotropic steel - UHPC composite decks, high-performance steel bridge decks, new technology for the preparation of steel fiber concrete, as well as new equipment for the field observations of wind-induced cable vibration.

2) Design Philosophy: The department has put forward the method of equivalent stiffness for steel-concrete transitional sections, developed the space nonlinear analytical and theoretical system based on degenerated girder elements, resolved the problem of nonlinear behavior of ultra-high piers of concrete-filled steel tubular latticed columns, and created the method of calculating the bending and pressing coupling of ultra-high piers for concrete-filled steel tubular latticed columns.

Research Area 2:Technologies of Bridge Construction, Management and Maintenance, and Long-term Performance and Safety Assessment

1) Technologies of Large-span Bridge Construction: The department has presented a geometric adaptive control theory for the entire construction process of kilometer-level cable-stayed bridges, developed the key technology for the construction control of long-span railway bridges, as well as new technology and equipment for the erection of the main girders of suspension bridges using the Rail Cable Launching Method.

2) Management and Maintenance Techniques: The department has systematically established the fundamental theory for the infrastructure health monitoring of high-speed railways, an integrated disaster monitoring system, an early warning system for multi-disaster intelligent evaluation, and a real-time interaction system of big data for disasters based on multi-network fusion transmission, designed a long-span bridge health monitoring system, and performed the installation and trial run, and analyses of relevant monitoring data of such bridges.

3) Long-term Performance and Safety Assessment:The department has advanced the theory of health assessment of large-span bridges, put forth the fatigue failure mechanism of large longitudinal rib orthotropic steel-UHPC composite bridge decks, developed a creep loading test system for large tonnage concrete-filled steel tubes under varying temperature and humidity, and a system which tests the behaviors of steel-concrete interface using fiber grating sensing technology, as well as predicting the long-term deformation of long-span concrete arch high-speed railway bridges.

Research Area 3:Vehicle-induced Vibration, Environmental Vibration and Noise Control

1) Vehicle-induced Vibration:The department has created the theory and model of high-speed train-track-bridge coupling vibration, offered guidance to the selection of the stiffness values and guideposts of bridges with common span lengths for high-speed railways, established a unified model for the coupling vibration of wind-vehicle-bridge systems, put forth the theory of coupled dynamic analysis, developed an experimental technique and a numerical simulation method which takes into account the aerodynamic interaction between vehicles and bridges, and conducted vehicle-bridge coupling vibration analyses, studies on design parameters and dynamic tests for the girders of medium- and low-speed maglev tracks.

2) Environmental Vibration and Noise Control:The department has studied the structural vibration of maglev stations, proposed the theory and method of full-band noise prediction for railway bridges based on the vehicle-track-bridge coupling vibration, boundary element method and statistical energy analysis method, and resolved the noise problem of steel-concrete composite girders by constraining layer damping.

Research Area 4:Theory and Control of Bridge Engineering Disaster Prevention and Reduction

1) Wind Resistance of Bridges: The department has built the world’s largest wind tunnel for civil engineering, developed the key wind-resistant technology for large-span cable-stayed bridges, carried out the wind resistance tests and studies for more than 100 large-span bridges, and advanced the field measurement, wind tunnel test technology and numerical analysis of wind characteristics of bridges in mountainous and hilly areas.

2) Seismic Resistance of Bridges:The department has analyzed the seismic vulnerability of large-span railway bridges, anti-seismic properties of the restorable piers of large-span railway bridges in highly seismic areas, and anti-seismic properties of reinforced concrete arch bridges, latticed and composite concrete-filled steel tubular piers in mountainous and hilly areas with high seismic intensity, as well as the sliding seismic isolation techniques for girder bridges.

4) Hydrodynamic Forces on Bridges: The department has assessed and predicted the environmental parameters of wind and wave fields, established a piecewise linearization method analyzing the structural collapses of large-span bridges in deep water due to the seismic fluid-solid coupling effect and wave action, created the fundamental theory and numerical model on the interaction between cross-sea bridges and waves, and developed software for wave force analysis of bridge structures.

5) Bridge Damage in Mountainous Areas: The department has developed the mechanism and calculation method of damages of bridge structures due to debris flow, and anti-collision and protection systems for piers in mountain valleys, and analyzed the impact of falling rocks and floods on bridge structures.