Another Yangtze River Bridge is to Open This Year

A new Yangtze River Bridge was completed in Shishou, Hubei province, on April 9 after three years' construction and is to open this year.

It was built by several companies including Hubei Provincial Communications Investment Group Co., Ltd and China Railway Construction Bridge Engineering Bureau Group Co., Ltd.

The new bridge, with a designed speed of 100 kilometers per hour, is a river-crossing passage of the Zaoyang -- Shishou road. The long bridge starts from the Jiangling section of the Qianjiang-Shishou expressway and connects with the Jiangnan Expressway.

The 12.2-kilometer twin tower cable-stayed bridge crosses over the 820-meter Yangtze River and is one of the most difficult of its kind to build in the world.

The Yangtze's Shishou section has typical meandering river ways with wide streams and a slow flow rate. At the bottom of the river is an over 200-meter thick silver sand layer.

To guarantee a solid pile foundation and ensure a firm bridge structure, the project team conquered geographic difficulties and built 119-meter friction piles.

As the new bridge neighbors the world-renowned Yangtze River Dolphin Nature Reserve and the Tian'ezhou Wetland Nature Reserve, environmental protection is also important.

To guarantee the progress of the construction and at the same time protect the environment, emergency rescue boats were on call at the bank and three sedimentation basins were built to purify waste water.

In addition, four acoustic environment supervision points and three water environment monitoring stations were set up by related monitoring institutes to supervise the environment regularly every month.

It will take only five minutes to travel across the river over the bridge after its completion and traveling time from Wuhan, capital of Hubei province, to Shishou will be shortened from nearly five hours to 2.5 hours.

In the future the bridge will be part of a passage connecting Jianghan Plain hinterland and Dongtinghu Plain, which will promote economic growth throughout the regions and the entire midland areas of China.

A distant view of the Shishou Yangtze River Bridge [Photo/China Railway Construction Corporation Limited (CRCC)]

The bridge spans the 820-meter Yangtze River. [Photo/CRCC]

Friction piles of 119-meters were adopted during construction to guarantee a solid pile foundation. [Photo/CRCC]

Monitoring points are set up to supervise the environment during construction. [Photo/CRRC]

It will take only five minutes for people to drive across the river using the bridge. [Photo/CRRC]

(Executive editor: Li Shuling)