Abstract
Damage to Hanshin Expressway ‘Kobe Route’ (P1 to P718) is described in conjunction with the structural characteristics. Although the damage level of many piers was generally very high in the Kobe Route, it is also true that the visually-judged damage of many piers is moderate or mild. The visually-judged damage level is scattered along the route; no consistent trend can be found. On the other hand, there were many piers which have large residual inclination without severe damage in appearance. In the latter part of this paper, damage to the piers from P1 to P350 is investigated in detail. Considering that large residual inclination (>0.5°) of piers is earthquake-induced severe damage, it is shown that almost all the RC single piers from P35 to P350 received severe damage consistently. The ratio, r of flexure to shear capacity of the RC single piers from P1 to P350 was calculated from the design drawings; it is found that, for severely damaged piers, the damage mode (flexure or shear) in the piers is fairly consistent with the value of r, either >1.0 or <1.0.
