Niigata, Japan's Bridges: Kaiun Bridge across the Sabaishi River (5)

August 2007 (37.3918° 138.5806°) Kaiun Bridge

Another view of the Kaiun Bridge. It looks like the bridge may have been instrumented (see metal boxes at closest abutment). Instrumentation allows engineers to compare recorded accelerations with the results of FEM analysis to improve bridge modeling techniques. In the photo below we can see they connected the two boxes with a suspended cable so it wouldn't break during strong shaking.

We can also see the water main that was brought over to the Kaiun Bridge after the nearby utility bridge was damaged by the Kashiwazaki Earthquake. Also note the stain on the short wingwall showing how much the embankment has settled.

Niigata, Japan's Bridges: Kaiun Bridge across the Sabaishi River (5) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.