Abstract: This study summarizes the domestic research status of bridge seismic resistance in permafrost area from three aspects: effect of permafrost site, effect of permafrost on bridge seismic response, interaction between permafrost and bridge structure. Results show that frozen soils have significant effect on response within the seismic site in permafrost regions. Existing seismic design of bridges is performed without taking the response within the permafrost site into account, and there are no provisions in current seismic codes. Larger numbers of numerical studies show that both seasonally frozen soil and permafrost have significantly effects on seismic responses of bridges in cold regions. However, the present researches on energy dissipation mechanism and failure characteristics of bridge structure-frozen soil system in permafrost regions under earthquakes are still insufficiently clear so far. For the bridges with pile foundation widely used in permafrost regions, the pile-frozen soil interaction mechanism becomes more complicated due to the frozen soils, therefore, the existing predictive model of pile-frozen soil interaction should be improved. Without the improvement, the influence of the hydrothermal effect caused by frozen soils (changes of the hydrothermal properties such as temperature and water content may lead to the change of mechanical properties of the frozen soils), will not been fully taken into account in seismic analyses of bridges. All of above problems should be the focus of seismic research of bridges in permafrost area in the future.

Key words: permafrost region, bridge seismicresearch, permafrost site response, frozen soil-pile interaction