t-:r,.:PAN SOCIETY OF CIVIL ENGINEERS

Engineers. This publication or any part of it can be reproduced in any form with due acknowledgement. The texts and figures of the papers compiled in this volume were set individually by the concerned authors. The ideas or views expressed in the papers included in this volume are of individual authors. In no way these are of the Institution of Engineers, Bangladesh or the Japan Society of Civil Engineers or the Editors or the institutions to which they belong to. Left: The Akashi Kaikyo Bridge (AKB) is a three-span, two-hinged stiffening girder system suspension bridge that spans the Akashi Strait between Maiko, Tarumi-ward in Kobe, and Matsuho, on Awaji Island. After various investigations including aerodynamic tests on large scale three dimensional prototypes, actual construction of the bridge began in May 1988, and took a total of ten years. The AKB was opened to traffic on April 5, 1998. The AKB become the longest suspension bridges in the world, surpassing the Humber Bridge (England, 1,410 meter center span) by 581 meters. Although in primary design the AKB was 3,910 meters long overall, with a center span of 1,990 meters, it was extended 1 meter by the Great Hanshi