With the deck now complete on another record-breaking bridge in China, and the world for that matter, so we are being given an insight astto just how that is done, thanks to a new time-lapse video which makes the engineering marvel look like child’s play.
The morning of 23 September saw the Nanjing Xianxin Road Cross-River Bridge successfully closed, meaning that the main project for the Bridge was essentially complete.
Both Nanjing Municipal Party Secretary, Han Liming; and Nanjing Mayor, Chen Zhichang, were in attendance at a ceremony to mark this milestone in the Bridge’s construction.
With a total length of 13.17 kilometres, the Nanjing Xianxin Road Cross-river Bridge is situated 4.3 kilometres upstream from the Qixia Shan Yangtze River Bridge and 6.2 kilometres downstream from the Bagua Zhou Yangtze River Bridge.
Officially commenced in March 2020, when ultimately opened to traffic next year, the drive from Qixia Avenue to Jiangbei will be shortened from 1 hour to just 10 minutes.
And given its proximity to Nanjing Chemical Industrial Park, the Bridge will become the first river crossing in Nanjing that will allow use by vehicles carrying hazardous chemicals.
Incorporating a nice local touch, the Bridge’s two main towers, both 263.8 metres high, feature a giant letter “N” as part of the design that anchors together the towers’s two piers.
The Bridge is set to become the suspension bridge with the longest span in China, for the time being, and the third longest in the world, bested only by the 1915 Çanakkale Bridge in Turkey and the Akashi Kaikyo Bridge in Japan.
As for that time-lapse video, interested readers can see therein the steel-box girders for the Bridge’s main deck hoisted synchronously from the mid span to the main towers by two 500-tonne cable cranes.
Watch the record-breaking Bridge put together like Lego in just 1 minute via this link, courtesy of the Yangtze Evening News.
