Journal of Steel Structures & Construction

The sea-crossing bridges that connect the two sides of the strait are becoming increasingly important for economic development, transportation, and trade as the economy grows and trade expands. The Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, which was recently built in China, connects Hong Kong, Zhuhai, and Macao, cutting travel time between the three cities in half, and is critical to the economic development of Hong Kong, Macao, and the Pearl River Delta's West Bank. The long span of such sea-crossing bridges typically ranges from a few kilometres to tens of kilometres, and they are frequently positioned near the beach. Unlike land-based bridges, research has demonstrated that the wave force on bridges is a crucial control load that cannot be overlooked

Long-span bridges are increasingly being used to cross longer passages in international bridge engineering. More daring bridge crossings, such as the Messina Strait and the Strait of Gibraltar, are being considered as experience and development progress. The Norwegian government intends to construct a continuous motorway along the country's west coast. A motorway like this would have to cross multiple fjords with extremely long-span bridges, displacing current ferry links. Many of the bridge concepts being considered are incredibly thin, such as floating bridges with spans up to 5500 metres and suspension bridges with major spans exceeding 3000 metres. The design stresses for these sorts of structures are governed by the buffeting response from turbulent wind loading, hence uncertainties related to the description of the turbulent wind field must be adequately handled because it has a substantial impact on overall structural reliability

Major transportation corridors, including long-span bridges, connecting core cities in coastal areas have played an important role in lowering highway traffic mileages, enhancing city cooperation and exchanges, easing traffic congestion, and supporting regional economic development. However, as traffic volumes and truck proportions increase, the risk of serious accidents on long-span bridges has increased dramatically in China. According to data, the number of traffic accidents on typical long-span bridges in China has increased significantly in recent years. Due to large truck percentages, inclement weather conditions, and especially the physically dynamic bridge structures, which is one of the unique factors of long-span bridges, traffic accidents on long-span bridges have associated specific characteristics when compared to traffic accidents on ordinary highways

With the increasing severity of earthquake resistance and disaster reduction of offshore bridges, more scholars are paying attention to the impact of ground motion on reinforced concrete structures, particularly the impact of the failure of some components in the original system on the remaining components and the stability of the remaining new system under earthquake which has gradually become an important part of the seismic analysis and evaluation of the bridge structure