Vol. 51 No. 3 (2014)   Machinery, Equipment & Infrastructure
Technical Papers

Clarification of Behavior of Huge Tsunami Action on Bridges - Hydraulic Model Experiment and Simulation Technology -

TOSHIMITSU SUZUKI
RIKUMA SHIJO
KAORU YOKOYAMA
SYUNICHI IKESUE
HIROFUMI YAMASAKI
JUNICHIRO MOTOYAMA

In the Tohoku-Pacific Ocean Earthquake that occurred in 2011, many social infrastructure facilities suffered significant damage from resulting tsunami. For disaster recovery, bridges are an important lifeline, and therefore it is necessary to prevent loss of their functionality when a disaster such as a tsunami occurs. In conventional designs, however, it was not assumed that bridge girders or other bridge elements would be carried away by tsunami wave forces, and estimations of tsunami wave force were difficult because no load calculations or design methods had been established. The authors are working on hydraulic model experiments and two-dimensional and three-dimensional numerical simulations to clarify the behavior of tsunami and their wave forces acting on the upper structure of a bridge1-3. This report presents a general overview.