Operational Performance Assessment Of High-pier&Long-span Concrete Bridge Based On Load Test

Remarkable achievements of high-pier long-span concrete beam bridges have been obtained in China, especially, more and more similar bridges have been built in the northwestern area. Therefore, it’s highly significant to conduct the relative research on the operational performance assessment of high-pier long-span concrete beam bridge for ensuring its operation safety and improving the operational performance assessment methods. Based on this background, the related research of the structural features and diseases, the structural load testing methods, and the operational performance assessment methods have been elaborated in this paper.The features of high-pier long-span concrete beam bridge have been amply discussed, including: the physical characteristics, the advantages and disadvantages, the stress features, and the technical economic characters. Based on these features, the potential structural diseases have been furtherly researched, including: the crack problem, the down deflection disease, the lack of bearing capacity, and the pier diseases, etc.Load testing method and operational performance assessment method have been focused on in the research. According to the assessment procedure, the structural stress condition, and the deflection influence line, the testing sections, the testing position distribution, the loading cases, and the loading positions have been designed, contributing to the following operational performance assessment of bridge structure by implementing time-domain-based modal parameter identification method.Taking Luohe Bridge as an example, the load testing method of operational performance assessment has been verified in engineering. From all kinds of testing data of this bridge, we can know that it’s under elastic operation status during the whole load tests and it has abundant bearing capacity for safety. Moreover, the field-measured vertical vibration frequency of Luohe Bridge is higher than the theoretical one, indicating the favorable global structural performance.