[photopress:Sutong_bridge.jpg,full,alignright]The Sutong Changjiang Highway Bridge in east China’s Jiangsu Province over the Yangtze River is a cable-stayed bridge and will have a world record 1,088 meters main span when completed in 2008. It will be a critical link of a major transportation artery.
After the bridge is built, crossing the Yangtze River between the cities of Suzhou and Nantong will no longer be an hour-long ferry ride. Instead it will be five minutes on the world’s longest cable-stayed bridge.
The foundations were not easy. Before the piles were drilled to the depth of 395 ft, the steel casings were driven by the largest vibro hammers available. Driving was through seven different layers of ground consisting mainly medium dense to very dense fine sands. Each casing weighted 135 tons with dimensions of 9.25 ft in diameter, 230 ft in length, and wall thickness of 1″.
China Harbour Engineering, the major contractor for the Sutong Bridge, finished driving of more than 200 casings in 6 months, in itself some sort of world’s record. Let us hope they are officially commended for this amazing effort.
Source: People’s Daily Online
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