The Zhaozhou Bridge is more than 1,400 years old. Why does it still stand proudly despite floods and earthquakes?

The main reason is that the structure of the Zhaozhou Bridge is very perfect. During floods, circulation can be carried out through the bridge openings. During earthquakes, the quality of the bridge body is reduced due to the bridge openings. At the same time, due to the small width of the bridge, It is large and has a thick base, so it can quickly decompose the force into various parts after receiving force, so it cannot collapse even in earthquakes.

Zhaozhou Bridge is the first stone arch bridge in human cognition, with a length of more than 60 meters. Its design mainly adopts an arch structure, which not only increases the stability of the bridge itself, but also Moreover, due to the addition of small bridge holes on both sides of the bridge, the weight of the bridge is reduced and the flood discharge capacity is increased. Everyone should have learned about the Zhaozhou Bridge in their Chinese textbooks. After all, it is the most famous bridge in China. First, let’s talk about the clear span and arch height of the Zhaozhou Bridge. The clear span of this bridge exceeds 37 meters. However, the advantage of this design is not the clear span, but its arch height.

For general bridges, as the clear span increases, the arch height also increases relatively, but the arch height of the Zhaozhou Bridge is only 7.25 meters. What is the concept? That is, the ratio of the clear span to the arch height can reach about 5 times. This kind of design is actually something that ordinary people dare not realize. Because the clear span is too long and there is no support point in the middle, it is difficult to achieve force balance by relying solely on materials for stability. So from this point of view, Zhaozhou Bridge is a counterexample of bridge design. There is a Chinese idiom that calls for survival in desperate situations, so counterexamples are not necessarily bad, such as this Zhaozhou Bridge.

But the Chinese nation is a nation full of wisdom and often challenges conventional operations, which is why there are so many miraculous works in the world. For example, the Great Wall, the Old Summer Palace, the Tomb of Qin Shihuang, etc. are all the accumulation of wisdom from generation to generation.