A Case History of Bridge Performance During Earthquakes in Japan

This paper describes the results of investigations on seismic damages to highway bridges due to the past major earthquakes occurred in Japan, with emphasis on gen. technical engineering aspects. More than three thousand highway bridges sustained seismic damages for these sixty years since 1923. Among them some thirty bridges completely fell down, including nine bridges failed due to the effects of fires. For some typical bridge damages, results of detailed analyses are also given in order to clarify the causes of the\u3e damages. From the review of comprehensive studies on actual bridge damages, this paper makes several conclusions regarding seismic damage features of bridge structures, important factors to be considered in the seismic design of bridges, and research subjects on which further investigations are necessitated for improving the current seismic design procedures