Abstract: Aiming at the safety performance analysis of the concrete bridge deck subject to falling massive cargo impact，an investigation is performed into an accident of a falling massive cargo onto bridge deck from passing truck in this paper，which happened to a long-span cable-stayed bridge． A performance evaluation procedure for precasting concrete deck under falling cargo impact is established． Firstly，the validity of the finite element method in low-velocity impact analysis is verified by comparing the analysis results with drop weight tests． Afterwards，a series of dynamic numerical simulation using the nonlinear finite element analysis program is conducted to investigate the bearing behavior and response of the ＲC bridge deck under falling cargo impact． Finally，the safety performance of the concrete bridge deck is evaluated by the established procedure． The analytical result indicates that the FEM method used in the analysis is adequate for reinforced concrete component subject low-velocity impact，and that main failure mechanism of the bridge deck is local failure mode，both the local responses are dominating during the collision． Furthermore，the safety performance of ＲC deck is evaluated by a dynamic loading analysis． The probability of each damage level for ＲC deck under different impact scenes is illustrated by vulnerability curves． 

Key words:  falling cargo, reinforced concrete, bridge deck, safety performance, vulnerability