Excessive steel production capacity has led to the widespread use of steel bridges in China, and the stability of steel bridges is prominent. The key to the design is to reasonably distribute the stiffness of the structure and set appropriate support. This paper collects 43 cases of steel bridges that have been damaged due to instability from 1881 to 2018. The reasons for the instability failure of steel bridges are divided into seven categories and proposed solutions combined with the cases are given to each type of instability failure .The statistical results show that the instability failure due to insufficient lateral support is as high as 53.3%, which is the primary cause of instability of steel bridge. The design of lateral support torsional stiffness becomes the key to solve this problem. The instability failure caused by insufficient stiffness of the steel plate is related to the stiffness setting of the longitudinal and transverse stiffeners of the steel plate. At the same time, the use of the double-layer steel plate in the compression member should be avoided as much as possible. The corrosion of the steel will affect the stability of the structure from various aspects, some key parts of steel bridges should receive more maintenance. The solution proposed in this paper for various types of instability damage will have reference significance for the stability design and construction of steel bridges.

CICTP