Load Test for World’s Highest Bridge Is Complete in Guizhou, China

China says it has completed a load test involving dozens of trucks on the world’s highest bridge, a steel suspension structure in Guizhou province.

The five-day testing completed on Aug. 25, with details of the project made available to media.

A testing team drove 96 trucks to designated places on the bridge, the BBC reports. 

The bridge deck is 2,083 ft above a river, which the BBC said will “set a record for both the world’s highest bridge and largest span above a mountainous area.” Set to open in September, it is in Qiannan Buyi and Miao Autonomous Prefecture.

Lei Min, load test director, told China-based CCTV that “we simulate extreme conditions with 3,360 tons of load to activate the maximum capacity of the bridge structure under normal use.”

According to a primer on bridge load testing published by the Transportation Research Board in 2019, bridge load testing goes back throughout history. Load tests have also been part of bridge inspection procedures dating to 1891.

According to the primer’s introduction, “in times when engineering models were not as accurate and available as today, a critical step in the construction of a bridge was to load test prior to opening or during the opening ceremony.”

The primer adds that “performing the load test and measuring deflections demonstrated to the public that the bridge was safe.”

Several bridges, such as a steel framework bridge over the Morava River near Ljubitschewo, Serbia, a road bridge near Salez, Switzerland and a suspension bridge in Maurin, France, collapsed during such load tests.