The Bridge Engineering discipline of Tongji University was founded in 1952 and is one of the earliest two bridge engineering disciplines established in Chinese universities. The first bridge engineering department in Chinese universities was established in 1987, and the first State Key Laboratory in the field of civil engineering, the State Key Laboratory of civil engineering disaster prevention, was approved to be established in 1988. In 1998, it became one of the first special appointed professors in the Yangtze River Scholar Award Program of the Ministry of Education and a key construction discipline of the national 211 Project. In 2000, it was selected as one of the ten top priority disciplines in Shanghai, and ranked first in the national key discipline evaluations of Bridge and Tunnel Engineering in 2002 and 2007.

The Department of Bridge Engineering currently houses 11 research (experimental) laboratories and 1 teaching and research office. It serves as the host institution for several professional organizations, including the Key Laboratory for Wind Resistance Technology of Bridge Structures in the transportation industry. It is also the permanent base for several prestigious international and national academic organizations, such as the Chinese Group of the International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering (IABSE), the Chinese Group of the International Association for Bridge Maintenance and Safety (IABMAS), the Bridge Engineering Division of the World Transport Convention (WTC), and the Bridge and Structural Engineering Committee of the China Civil Engineering Society (CCES).

The department has 107 faculty and staff members, including 1 academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, 2 recipients of national-level talent programs, 1 chief scientist of the National Basic Research Program (973 Program), 30 professors, 22 associate professors, and 17 lecturers or equivalent mid-level positions. Additionally, there are 24 postdoctoral researchers. Each year, the department admits over 70 master’s students and more than 40 doctoral students.

The department’s teaching and research infrastructure includes four major buildings: the Bridge Hall, Wind Engineering Hall, TJ-1 Wind Tunnel Hall, and the Shaking Table Laboratory at the Jiading Campus, with a total floor area of approximately 15,000 square meters. The department is equipped with advanced facilities, including a cluster of seven boundary layer wind tunnels, a wave-current flume, the world’s most comprehensive multi-functional shaking table array, a bi-directional dynamic/static hydraulic servo loading system, and a full suite of bridge inspection and monitoring instruments. The total value of fixed assets exceeds 300 million RMB.

The Department of Bridge Engineering actively aligns with the development strategy of large-scale transportation infrastructure construction in China, with the overall goal of cultivating high-quality talents in the field of bridge engineering and researching key technologies in bridge engineering design, construction, and maintenance. It gradually forms a disciplinary feature that combines theoretical research, physical experiments, on-site measurement, and numerical simulation, and strives to become a national important base and international center that is in line with the forefront of international large-scale bridge and power research, cultivating high-level talents, conducting high-level scientific research, and transforming high-tech achievements.