New insight into an ancient stone arch bridge—The Zhao-Zhou Bridge of 1400 years old》.pdfVIP

Int. J. Mech. $ci. Vol. 29, No. 12, pp. 831 843, 1987 0020-7403/87 $3.00+ .00 Printed in Great Britain. 01987 Pergamon Journals Ltd. N E W I N S I G H T I N T O A N A N C I E N T S T O N E A R C H B R I D G E - - T H E Z H A O - Z H O U B R I D G E O F 1400 Y E A R S O L D QIAN LING-XI Research Institute of Engineering Mechanics, Dalian Institute of Technology, Dalian, The Peoples Republic of China (Received 12 May 1985) A b s t r a c t - - I n this paper an analysis is made for the old Zhao-Zhou Stone Arch Bridge on its carrying capacity based on structural limit analysis. For a stone arch bridge, with a given arch centre line and a given loading condition, there exists a minimum thickness limit for the arch ring. If the actual thickness of the arch ring is less than or equal to that limit, the stone arch will collapse as a result of the development of more than three hinges. The ratio of the actual thickness and the minimum limit characterizes the safety of the arch bridge under that loading condition. A calculation is made in this paper of the minimum thickness limit of the Zhao-Zhou Arch Bridge and its safety factors under a live concentrated load of 10tons. That ancient bridge with 1400 years of history is shown to be very similar to a modern arch bridge in its appearance and is proved by the calculation to be in good accordance with the modern bridge building science.