Maintenance Strategies of Historical Bridges In China

In China a large number of bridges built in 1960s and 1970s are still in operation. They went through several decades of intense heat and cold winter, water scouring, and accelerated load-increasing, which will lead to the deterioration of the structure. They are in the need of maintenance, reinforcement and transformation. The bridge assessment, maintenance, reinforcement and strengthening for the safety and reliability of existing bridges had attracted the attention of researchers. It's essential to reinforce the old bridges with appropriate designs and construction technologies to improve its load-carrying capacity and extend the service life to meet the requirements of the current transportation. This paper first introduced China's current situation and existing problems of the bridges. Then the strengthening methods and techniques for the existing damaged bridges are presented. The conclusions and future prospects are finally given.