The process of urbanization has accelerated economic growth while also presenting social challenges. Urban renewal is crucial for achieving sustainable urban development, especially by preserving traditional villages as cultural heritage sites within cities. This study employs Python algorithm programming and visual analysis functions to conduct a bibliometric analysis of 408 research papers on the preservation of traditional village cultural heritage in urban renewal from 1999 to 2023 in the Web of Science core database. The objective is to examine the historical background, current status, and future trends in this area. The analysis explores cooperation networks, co-citation relationships, co-occurrence patterns, and emerging characteristics of research on traditional village cultural heritage protection in urban renewal. It focuses on various aspects, such as authors, institutions, countries, journals, documents, and keywords. The results indicate that the study of traditional village cultural heritage protection in urban renewal can be divided into three developmental stages. “Sustainable development”, “cultural heritage”, “historic urban landscapes”, and “rural revitalization” are the research hotspots and future trends in this field. The results of this study provide a comprehensive overview of the evolution of research hotspots in this field and can help researchers willing to work in this research area quickly understand the research frontiers and the general situation.

The long-term deformation of a 17.5 m deep excavation constructed with the bottom-up technique in silty clay in Xi’an was monitored in this study. The retaining wall was built with one or two rows of contiguous bored concrete piles and tie-back prestressing tendons. The monitoring of settlement and lateral deflection at the top of the retaining structure, and the settlement of the ground surface and of the adjacent building lasted for more than 4 years. After the final depth was reached, the excavation was surveyed for more than 3.1 years. It was observed that the deformation of the excavation increased with the increase in the excavation depth, and a significant increase in displacement was recorded after the excavation reached the final depth. The averaged time-dependent rates of the deflection of the retaining wall, and the settlement of the ground surface and of the adjacent building when the excavation remained partially unfilled were around 0.23–0.25 mm/month in this study. The time-dependent behavior of the excavation could lead to excessive deformation and cause severe safety risks to the retaining system. The recorded data, together with a comparison with cases reported in the open literature, are presented in this paper.

Toward estimating accurately the distortional response of box girders, in this article, distortion of steel box girders strengthened with intermediate solid diaphragms under eccentric loads is analyzed by employing the so-called initial parameter method. A new model of high-order statically indeterminate structure was established with three orthogonal redundant forces acting at the junction between the girder and diaphragms. Emphasis is put onto the interaction between the girder and diaphragms, where a hypothetical bi-moment B _pi indicating all longitudinal redundant force components for diaphragm was proposed besides the moment M _pi for in-plane shear component. Simplified initial parameter method solutions for distortional angle and distortional warping stresses and displacements were derived based on the in-plane and out-of-plane compatibilities between the girder and diaphragms. Taking box girders with three and five intermediate diaphragms as an example, the proposed initial parameter method solutions have good agreement with the finite element analysis ones. Finally, distortional behavior under moving eccentric loads is investigated, resulting in a bowl-shaped curve for moment M _pi and an approximate trigonometric function for bi-moment B _pi . Results show that diaphragms have a stronger resistance on in-plane distortional shear for the loads in midspan than on ends. Plus, the thick diaphragm holds a stronger restraint on distortional warping deformations and stresses than the thin one.