Nanjing’s iconic Yangtze River Bridge has had an extra sheen added to her lustre, as the 50-plus- year-old structure was recently selected as winner of a prestigious award in the international bridge-building community, for renovation work completed in 2018.
It all began in October, 2016, when authorities closed the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge to vehicles to allow for essential repairs necessary after half a century of traffic flow, much of it in excess of designed capacity. The renovation work required was a daunting challenge, one that has now been recognised at an international level.
A creation of the Engineers’ Society of Western Pennsylvania (USA), the International Bridge Conference (IBC) attracts over 1,000 delegates each year; designers, constructers, engineers, bridge owners, senior policy makers and government officials, together with third-party suppliers from all over the world. The IBC medals honour distinguished engineers who have made a significant contribution to the bridge engineering profession worldwide.
In the case of Nanjing, the IBC is conferring the renovation team with an “Award of Merit – Heavy/Light Rail Bridge Project”, for the tough work that was undertaken.
Among the achievements recognised are the team’s addressing of the longstanding, worldwide problem of asphalt on a long-span steel bridge deck, reported Nanjing Daily today. The solution involved replacing the bridge’s aging concrete deck with an orthotropic bridge deck manufactured using factory robots.
Industry publication RT&S also revealed that the renovators used solid-state, electromagnetic induction heating to replace rusted rivets.
As for the all-important aesthetics of the structure, engineers needed to be innovative in their delicate restoration of all cultural and visual aspects of the original bridge, that included brighter, intelligent and energy-saving lighting and drainage system.
Recipients of this year’s IBC medals will be recognised during the IBC that this year runs in a virtual form, from 19-23 October.
The renovated Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge was reopened on 29 December, 2018, fittingly and very much deliberately, 50 years to the day after it first opened. According to Xinhua News, the bill for the bridge’s renovation came to ¥1.14 billion, while experts say the bridge is now expected to last for another 50 years.
To give some idea of the status the bridge commands in the hearts of Chinese people, when authorities opened the bridge to pedestrians only for 3 days prior to allowing the return of vehicles, it was literally swamped with crowds of people, in an atmosphere of dance, celebration and pilgrimage.
While China is a frequent winner of IBC awards for her road bridges, this is only the third Chinese win for an IBC railway bridge award. Previously, Nanjing’s Dashengguan Yangtze River Bridge picked up a George S. Richardson Medal in 2012, while the older sibling of this year’s winner, in Wuhan, won the same award in 2010.
Another IBC winner in our neck of the woods is the Ma’anshan Yangtze River Bridge, just across the border from Nanjing in Anhui Province, that picked up the George S. Richardson Medal in 2016. The bridge shares the title of longest double-span suspension bridge in the world with the Taizhou Yangtze River Bridge, also here in our very own Jiangsu Province.
