How do engineers account for continental drift when building bridges and tunnels?
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Continents don’t drift like stretching taffy. They creak and judder and largely stay rigid, shifting along lines known as fault lines. And they don’t move smoothly – they stay still for years and then there’s an earthquake and they move a lot (like, several inches) in a short time.
You typically don’t build a bridge straight across a fault line. If you do, it falls down in the next earthquake. You certainly don’t do something as dumb as tunnelling across a fault.
Continents don’t drift like stretching taffy. They creak and judder and largely stay rigid, shifting along lines known as fault lines. And they don’t move smoothly – they stay still for years and then there’s an earthquake and they move a lot (like, several inches) in a short time.
You typically don’t build a bridge straight across a fault line. If you do, it falls down in the next earthquake. You certainly don’t do something as dumb as tunnelling across a fault.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akashi_Kaikyo_Bridge
> The two towers were originally 1,990 m (6,530 ft) apart, but the Great Hanshin earthquake on January 17, 1995 (magnitude 7.3, with epicenter 20 km west of Kobe) moved the towers (the only structures that had been erected at the time) such that the central span had to be increased by 1 m (3.3 ft).
I’m not sure what would’ve happened if the bridge had already been completed when the earthquake occurred.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akashi_Kaikyo_Bridge
> The two towers were originally 1,990 m (6,530 ft) apart, but the Great Hanshin earthquake on January 17, 1995 (magnitude 7.3, with epicenter 20 km west of Kobe) moved the towers (the only structures that had been erected at the time) such that the central span had to be increased by 1 m (3.3 ft).
I’m not sure what would’ve happened if the bridge had already been completed when the earthquake occurred.
[Most structures are built with expansion joints](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expansion_joint), but those are generally only intended to handle day to day movement from things like shifting load, wind, temperature change, and earthquakes that don’t reposition different parts of the structure elsewhere.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akashi_Kaikyo_Bridge
> The two towers were originally 1,990 m (6,530 ft) apart, but the Great Hanshin earthquake on January 17, 1995 (magnitude 7.3, with epicenter 20 km west of Kobe) moved the towers (the only structures that had been erected at the time) such that the central span had to be increased by 1 m (3.3 ft).
I’m not sure what would’ve happened if the bridge had already been completed when the earthquake occurred.
It’s not the same as your original question, but something that I thought was pretty neat is that the [south pole research station is built on stilts](https://www.southpolestation.com/foundationdesign.html) and the whole thing is designed to be raised up as the snow collects around it so it doesn’t get buried like previous stations.
[Most structures are built with expansion joints](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expansion_joint), but those are generally only intended to handle day to day movement from things like shifting load, wind, temperature change, and earthquakes that don’t reposition different parts of the structure elsewhere.
It’s not the same as your original question, but something that I thought was pretty neat is that the [south pole research station is built on stilts](https://www.southpolestation.com/foundationdesign.html) and the whole thing is designed to be raised up as the snow collects around it so it doesn’t get buried like previous stations.
It’s not the same as your original question, but something that I thought was pretty neat is that the [south pole research station is built on stilts](https://www.southpolestation.com/foundationdesign.html) and the whole thing is designed to be raised up as the snow collects around it so it doesn’t get buried like previous stations.
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