Lessons in bridge damage learned from the Wenchuan earthquake

W. Phillip Yen¹, Genda Chen², Mark Yashinski³, Youssef Hashash⁴, Curtis Holub⁵, Wang Kehai⁶ and GuoXiaodong⁷

1. Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center of Federal Highway Administration (FWHA)
2. Center for Transportation Infrastructure and Safety (CTIS), a National University Transportation Center at Missouri
University of Science and Technology
3. California Department of Transportation Representing the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI)
4. University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign and Representing Geo-Engineering Earthquake Reconnaissance (GEER)
5. Mid-America Earthquake Center (MAE), University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign
6. Research Institute of Highway, the Ministry of Communication of China
7. Sichuan Province Highway Planning, Survey, Design, and Research Institute, China

Abstract: A strong earthquake occurred in Wenchuan County, Sichuan Province, China, on May 12, 2008. Shortly
after the earthquake, the Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center of the Federal Highway Administration, in partnership
with the Research Institute of Highways, the Ministry of Communication of China, led a reconnaissance team to conduct
a post-earthquake bridge performance investigation of the transportation system in the earthquake affected areas. The U.S.
transportation system reconnaissance team visited the area during July 20¨C24, 2008. This paper presents the findings and
lessons learned by the team.

Keywords: earthquake engineering; bridge engineering; post earthquake investigation



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