Performance of Heihe Bridge during the Maduo earthquake
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14311/CEJ.2026.03.0025Keywords:
Heihe Bridge, Link slabs, Abutment nonlinearity, Site liquefaction, Mechanism of seismic damageAbstract
On May 22, 2021, an Ms 7.4 magnitude earthquake occurred in Maduo, Qinghai Province, China. In the Maduo Earthquake, the near-field rupture direction was obvious, and some girders of the Yematan Bridge and the Yematan No.2 Bridge fell down along the seismic fault-normal direction. But, for the Heihe Bridge which was also close to the fault-normal direction, only some of the anti-knock blocks on the upline were cracked. In this paper, the reason why the seismic damage of Heihe Bridge was slight in the Maduo Earthquake was studied in detail. Firstly, the seismic damage situation of Heihe Bridge in the Maduo Earthquake was introduced. Secondly, the finite element model of the Heihe Bridge was established in the Midas Civil software, and the seismic response analysis was performed under some processed ground motions of Maduo Earthquake. Thirdly, the effects of bridge link slabs, abutment nonlinearity and site liquefaction on the bridge seismic response were studied. Finally, the seismic damage mechanism of the Heihe Bridge was summarized, and the seismic resistance suggestions on small and medium-sized simply supported girder bridges are proposed. The results show that: 1) The bridge seismic performance was improved by the link slabs, and it reduced the displacement of the girder and the internal force of the bridge substructure in the earthquake, so that the longitudinal seismic response of the supported girder bridge with link slabs was similar to that of the continuous girder bridge; 2) The reason why the seismic damage of the Heihe Bridge was slight might be the longitudinal restraint effect of the abutments; 3) The seismic damages of the upline and the downline were different might due to the site liquefaction.
Received: 26.09.2024
Received in revised form: 03.02.2026
Accepted: 09.08.2026
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