Niigata, Japan's Bridges: Kaiun Bridge across the Sabaishi River (8)

August 2007 (37.3918° 138.5806°) Kaiun Bridge

As the abutment on the Kaiun Bridge was pushed forward due to lateral spreading during the Kashiwazaki Earthquake, the elastomeric bearings became severely distorted. It looks like the entire backwall was sheared off, perhaps by lateral spreading or by the girders striking the backwall.

A transverse shear key sits undamaged beside the bearing. The steel keys either did a good job of preventing transverse motion or the earthquake shook the bridge mainly in a longitudinal direction.

In the photo below, we can see one of the brackets for a cable restrainer attached to the girder web. The restrainer has a spring at the end, perhaps to handle temperature movement or to prevent a hard impact during shaking.

Niigata, Japan's Bridges: Kaiun Bridge across the Sabaishi River (8) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.