2.3 The First Chinese Building Code Series
The period from 1957 to 1966 was a time for the transition from Soviet aid to the third-front construction.The Ministry of Construction was the leading force in the formulation of building codes and specifications.It has promulgated twenty-four kinds of national standards,for instance,mix ratio,waterproof and heat insulation.The core of the relevant standards was to save materials while to ensure construction and installation quality.The third-front construction was too hasty to think about the whole process thoroughly.Thus,acceptance criteria were extremely necessary to make sure basic safety.Furthermore pre-stress techniques,blocks and prefabricated components were very helpful to save materials and labors in practice.The year 1972 was fruitful after the peak time of the third-front construction.The Chinese Ministry of Construction successively promulgated eight structural specifications,including Design Load Standards for Industrial and Civil Building Structures and Design Specifications for Reinforced Concrete Structures.Due to the lack of uniform principles during the revision process,it caused some effects.A large number of investigations were carried out to revise it after 1976 on the premise of summarizing international experience and unifying probability theory.In fact the third-front construction has formed the backbone of the industry in western China.It shows that Chinese scientists have been able to sum up the theoretical and engineering experience and have promoted the structural reliability design method to the international level at that time.
Table 1 The Main Specifications（1950s-1970s）
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*According to the“Chinese Architectural Yearbook（1984-1985）”statistics.