Niigata, Japan's Bridges: Kaiun Bridge across the Sabaishi River (7)

August 2007 (37.3918° 138.5806°) Kaiun Bridge

The expansion joints on the Kaiun Bridge were tightly closed after the Kashiwazaki Earthquake because the abutments had been pushed forward due to lateral spreading. I've noticed Japan's bridges usually have steel finger joints while California's bridges tend to have elastomeric joint seals.

At the ends of the expansion joints are black plastic diaphragms, maybe to prevent banging of the deck against the backwall. If that was the intention however, it didn't prevent shear cracking at the bottom of the backwall. The red steel barrier rail has a telescoping connection to handle the movement of the joint.

Niigata, Japan's Bridges: Kaiun Bridge across the Sabaishi River (7) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.