A Brief Review of Developments and Challenges for High-speed Rail Bridges in China and Germany

China and Germany are countries with a lot of experience in the construction of high-speed railway (HSR) bridges. Standardized design and construction of railway bridges has promoted the initial success of rapidly establishing HSRs in these two countries. Nevertheless, the continued development of HSR bridges brings new challenges to design concepts and engineering technologies. This paper briefly reviews the recent practices of HSR bridges in China and Germany, and summarizes the development of track structures and bridges. The integral design concept of the track-bridge system is presented. Thereinto, continuous ballastless track and integral bridges are introduced. The development trends of HSR bridges-including longer spans, lighter structures and faster train operating speeds-are also discussed.