Sichuan China's Bridges: Miao Zi Ping Bridge (1)

July 2008 (31.021 Degrees, 103.544 Degrees) Miao Zi Ping Bridge

Drove on the Dujianyan to Wenchuan (Duwen) Highway to the Miao Zi Ping Bridge, which crosses the Zi Ping Pu Reservoir, created by damming the Min River.  This bridge has an RC box girder main span on single column towers and T-girder approach spans on two-column bents. The bridge was completely constructed except for installing the expansion joints at the time of the earthquake. 

The most severe damage was to the end span of a continuous five-span T-girder segment that broke and fell off the supporting bent caps during the earthquake.  There were other indications of large longitudinal movement. The barrier rails overlapped by about 300 cm at the southeast expansion joint. Divers found cracks at the bottom of the main span columns.

Sichuan China's Bridges: Miao Zi Ping Bridge (1) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.