Great demand and great challenge

Under the background of high annual growth rates of GDP, China has experienced with the evergrowing demand in improving traffic infrastructure nationwide for about three decades, which results in intensive investment in traffic infrastructure development, in particular highway transportation construction. Two ground plans, the National Trunk Highway System and the National Expressway Network, have been launched successively, and thousands of highway bridges have been built for each year. In order to meet with the great demand in highway bridge development, Chinese bridge community is facing several challenges in the design and analysis of major bridges, especially of super long-span bridges. Aerodynamic challenge of suspension bridges was introduced by three typical examples including a single-box-girder with a central stabilizer, a twin-box-girder and a trial design with the combination of stabilizers and central slotted decks. Bridging capacity challenge was explained by three cable-stayed bridges with about 1000 m main span and a record-breaking span-length arch bridge. The other technical challenge was focused on the rational design and analysis of a double main span suspension bridge and a twin parallel deck cable-stayed bridge.