Structural Performance and Repair Methodology of the Wenxing Lounge Bridge in China

Abstract

Many timber lounge bridges are found in the south of ZhejiangProvince and the north of Fujian Province in China. The timber lounge bridge is a unique type of timber arch bridge structure worldwide. Most of these bridges have some damages due to the influence by environmental impact and human action. In order to scientifically preserve these timber lounge bridges, their architectural configuration, structural performance, and damage mechanisms should be studied first, and then some adaptive repair methods can be put forward. The Wenxing Lounge Bridge is a famous and typical example of this type of bridge. This study investigated in detail how to repair the Wenxing Lounge Bridge. Since this bridge had much serious damage, such as asymmetric deformation, inclination and torsion, cracking and deflection of some timber members, and the slipping-off of the scissors braces and the crossbeams, and since the bridge occasionally swayed when people walked across it, it needed to be repaired urgently. Through the detailed on-site surveying and visits to the local bridge craftsmen, the architectural configurations and the damage characteristics of this bridge were understood. The finite element model analysis of this bridge before damage and after damage was made respectively to study the structural performance. Finally, the reasons for the damages of this bridge were analyzed and the adaptive repair design of the bridge is presented here. This work serves as a model for similar timber arch bridges.

Structural Behavior, Geometric, and Constructive Analysis of the Medieval Wooden Dome in the Hall of Ambassadors of the Alcazar of Seville

“…For the structural analysis of these models, the finite element method (FEM) has been used, which is a widely contrasted procedure for the numerical analysis of this type of structure (Coz Diaz et al, 2012;Chun et al, 2015;Gao and Ohta, 2007;Galassi et al, 2018). The calculation has been developed using SAP2000 software v.22.…”

Quantitative safety evaluation of ancient Chinese timber arch lounge bridges

“…The CIA of the Wenxing Bridge is conducted with the FE software ANSYS. The timber grades and material constants of Chinese fir and Chinese pine were obtained from another relative study by Chun [4]. Since the bridge has been in service for more than 100 years, according to the code [26], material constants need to be reduced to a certain extent.…”

“…The reduction factor of the elastic modulus was 0.90. In the reference [4], the mechanical properties of timber material are determined by timber sample testing. For Chinese fir, the material properties are as follows: 6.3 MPa for the tensile strength parallel to grain, 9.5 MPa for the compressive strength parallel to grain, 1.08 MPa shear strength parallel to grain, and 8100 MPa for the longitudinal elastic modulus.…”

“…At present, there are totally around a hundred of the bridges existing in China, but not all of them are in a good structural health condition. As more and more ancient timber arch lounge bridges were destroyed in the past two decades due to material deterioration, natural disasters, anthropogenic influence, and the losing of the craftmanship as well, the structural vulnerability and preventive conservation of the bridges are consequently receiving significant attention in recent years in China [3][4][5][6][7]. Therefore, a thorough and scientific structural evaluation of these historic bridges is a necessary and urgent task so as to carry out the possible preventive protection or refurbishment.…”

Experimental and Numerical Analysis of a Reinforced Wood Lap Joint

“…This type of lap joint was also planned to be used for the restoration of the timber arch lounge bridges in China ( Figure 2 ). The main bearing structure of the timber arch lounge bridge is a woven arch, which is composed of round wood components, and these round wood components need to bear loads such as the structure’s own weight and pedestrian loads [ 11 , 12 ]. However, the bearing capacity of an unreinforced lap joint could not reach the bearing capacity of the intact beam, which made it unsafe to be used in some load-bearing members.…”