9. Project of the Honshu-Shikoku Bridge
Location: Japan Sea
Complete Expense: $3.6 Billion
Year Completed: 1998
The Honshu-Shikoku Bridge Project links the Honshu and Shikoku Islands with a network of three bridge systems and their corresponding expressways. The “Great Set Bridge,” which connects the three systems with eighteen bridges—including the longest suspension bridge in the world, the Akashi Kaikyo Bridge—was the first of the three systems to be finished.
Project for the Honshu-Shikoku Bridge ©take_p / Shutterstock
Twenty adjusted mass dampeners were installed in each of the Akashi Kaikyo Bridge’s towers by engineers, causing the bridge to sway in the opposite direction of the wind. The fact that this suspension bridge required more than two million laborers and 100,000 tons of steel to build over the course of ten years is what makes it even more amazing.
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