Abstract
Prefabricated parallel wire strands have been adopted as the main cables of the Akashi Kaikyo Bridge, a suspension bridge with main-span of 1, 990m. These strands are fabricated at factories and bundled into a main cable at site. The tensile strength of steel wires consisting the strands is 180kgf/mm2, which is 20kgf/mm2 higher than that of conventional wires. Pin-plate type cable bands made of cast steel have been adopted on the bridge, in addition to the conventional groove cable bands. A new type of ropes, long-lay steel wire strands doubly coated with polyethylene and fluoric resin were introduced as the hanger ropes. These factory fabricated products are new materials with new structural forms, and surpass the past records in kinds and volume. Structural forms, materials, fabrication processes, quality control methods and inspection items of these products, parallel wire strands, cable bands, hanger ropes and other cable accessaries, are presented in this paper.
