Abstract：To improve the understanding of the solar thermal actions of bridge structure, the domestic and overseas research status about the distribution characteristics, the research methods, the thermal action patterns and the values, etc. of solar temperature field of bridge structure were summarized and analyzed. The future research emphasis and directions were discussed. The results show: typical time-history periodic and spatially non-uniform characteristics of temperature field of bridge structure can be observed, and the characteristics, which are mainly affected by three types of factors including structural type, climate condition and geographical environment, have obvious difference due to the differences of bridge type and region. Numerical simulations and field tests are employed as the main research methods of analyzing the temperature field of bridge structure. Because the boundary conditions of solar radiation and heat convection haven’t been unified in numerical simulations, the long-term field testing of bridge based on meteorological data is still very necessary, and enough emphasis should be put on the arrangement of measurement points to completely reflect the nonlinear distribution of temperature field of bridge structure. In the existing researches, multiple parabola, exponential curve and broken lines have been commonly used to describe the temperature gradient of bridge structure, and the temperature values were generally attained based on meteorological data correlation and statistical analysis. The research directions of solar action on bridge structure may mainly include field test on temperature distribution and thermal action patterns of composite bridge structure, measurement on temperature distribution of bridge structure in different regions and complex terrains, as well as the fine numerical simulations on the solar temperature field of complex large-span bridges.
