1 A BRIEF REVIEW OF RESEARCH ON LONG SPAN CONCRETE ARCH BRIDGE

Thanks to the greater compression strength of concrete, it is reasonable to use it in arch bridge because arch works essentially in compression. The first concrete arch bridge spanning more than 100 m, the Risorgimento Bridge in Rome, was built about 100 years ago. Along with the rapid development of construction technology and improvement of structural materials, the span record of concrete arch bridges has been refreshing continually. In 1979, the completion of Krk I Bridge in Croatia with the main span of 390m made a miracle at that time in concrete arch bridge. This bridge was constructed by temporary truss method. However, the lengthening cantilever of arch ring undoubtedly increases the difficulty of construction. Currently the KRK arch bridge still ranks as the world’s longest arch bridge erected by cantilever-construction method. Now Wanxian Yangtze River Bridge with span of 420m in China is the longest concrete arch bridge in the world. It was built by embedded formwork comprising a latticework structure of concrete-filled steel tubes (CFST). The scaffolding was erected by cantilever cable-stayed method (Yan and Yang 1997). The concrete was cast in situ ring by ring transversally and section by section longitudinally to avoid overloading of the formwork and hence also ver