OasisLMS

Abstract: Last year’ s M7.6 earthquake in the Noto Peninsula region of Japan severely destroyed many buildings and infrastructure in the area in addition to casualties of more than 400. The arterial highway running through the hard-hit area was closed due to landslides and slope failures at multiple locations, preventing expedient recovery. At one of the damaged locations, the foundation of a bridge abutment was exposed and a half width of its approach section of the roadway was lost due to a local landslide. As part of an emergency recovery effort, it was so planned to build an earth retaining wall to protect the abutment from a secondary landslide and to rebuild the lost portion of the embankment structure. However, the possible construction staging area was very limited where one lane of the elevated highway had to be kept open for traffic on one side with an unstable collapsed slope on the other. A pressed-in pipe pile wall was selected as the primary earth retaining structure because of the physically limited site conditions and the sensitive slope next to the abutment. 34 of the 800mm diameter and 23.5m long pipe piles were pressed in with a Gyropress piling machine, which rotates and simultaneously presses piles into the ground with minimum vibration. A Clamp Crane was utilized along with the piling machine; both of which move forward and backward safely on top of already installed piles without needing a large construction staging area, contributing to the fast full reopening of the highway.

TAKEFUMI TAKUMA; Mr. Shinya Kubo

Annual Conference Proceedings