Applications' Photo Gallery & Virtual Tours
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China's Sutong Bridge
I’m Craig Winters, Seismic Product Sales Manager at Taylor Devices, Inc. These giant shock absorbers are part of a group of eight that we’ve manufactured for the Sutong Bridge in China. Each unit weighs 9 tons! These are spring-damper devices. Each one provides up to 350 tons of damping force and 1125 tons of spring force over a 60 inch total stroke.
Here is an artist’s drawing of the bridge. It is sited across the Yangtze River, north of Shanghai. Total bridge length is 4.7 miles, and at the time of completion in 2008 was the largest cable-stayed bridge on the planet.
Here is the damper cartridge being assembled at Taylor Devices’ facility in North Tonawanda, New York.
This is the spring element made of stacked pads of a proprietary rubber compound..
Assembly of the damper and spring portions required a construction crane!
Here is a finished unit, some 22 feet in length and 3 feet in diameter.
Each unit went through extensive testing in Taylor Devices’ 1300 ton capacity high speed hydraulic test machine.
Here are the dampers being installed on the bridge.
Here is the completed installation on one section of the bridge, protecting the structure against earthquakes, typhoons, and minimizing road traffic breaking motions.
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