Donghai Bridge – The First Super Long Open Sea Crossing
in China
Changyu Shao, Chief Eng. of Shanghai Municipal Engineering Design Institute (SMEDI), China, and Zhifang Yang, Prof.-level
Engineer of Shanghai Tongsheng Major Bridge Construction Ltd., China
Introduction
The Donghai Bridge is a very impor-
tant subsidiary project to the Shanghai
Yangshan Deep-water Harbor Proj-
ect. The bridge is the first super long
bridge crossing open sea in China with
the total length of 32,5 km. It starts at
Shanghai Luchao Harbor, and crosses
the open sea to the Phase I junction
of Xiaoyangshan Harbor. The proj-
ect is characterized by its large scale,
the severe environmental conditions,
the high technical difficulties, and the
short construction duration; therefore,
the design of this bridge brought about
a series of problems which were never
faced before and required detailed
analysis and study for its solution.1
The designers worked out the plans
and techniques for safe and efficient
off-shore construction; as a successful
result, the construction of the bridge
took merely 40 months from June 2002
to October 2005.
Keywords: Donghai Bridge; non-
navigational spans; driven steel pipe;
pre-cast pier shaft; pre-fabricated in
one complete span; cable-stayed bridge;
composite box girder.
Project Overview
Construction Environmental
Conditions
The bridge, crossing 26 km of wide
open sea with the water depth of
Fig. 1: General view of Donghai Bridge
Structural Engineering International 1/2008
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10–20 m, is located at over 130 m thick
loose stratum of the Quaternary Peri-
od. The current velocity of sea water at
the bridge site is generally 2,0–2,5 m/s,
and the maximum height of wave in a
return period of 100 years is 6,19 m.
The maximum measured wind speed
at bridge site is 35,0 m/s.
The bridge site is under great influence
of such climatic and oceanic conditions
of an open sea, as wind, wave, current,
tide, fog and rain; therefore, the annual
operable days are 240 days for sub-
structures, and 180 days for pier and
girder assembly.
Bridge Layout
The bridge is 32,5 km in length, of which
about 90% is off-shore as illustrated
in Fig. 1. It includes one main naviga-
tional channel, three auxiliary navi-
gational channels, non-navigational
spans as well as approach spans for
port connection. The general informa-
tion of the bridge is shown in Table 1.
The design of Donghai Bridge adopts
a traffic speed of 80 km/h and dual
three lanes with typical deck width of
31,5 m according to Chinese Express
Way Design Code. The loading of the
bridge is designed according to a Chi-
nese standard truck lane load (20 t
standard trucks at 15 m intervals and
one special truck with a 55 t axle load)
and checked according to a specialized
container lane load (55 t containers at
10 m intervals).
The numbers of different construc-
tion elements involved are 5700 piles
driven at open sea using “piling ships”,
700 bored piles cast-in-situ by off-
shore platform, 822 large piers of 300 t
weight each installed by off-shore ope-
rations, and 670 pieces of box girders
with 1700–2000 t weight each installed
by lifting vessels with 2500 t capacity.2
The alignment of Donghai Bridge is
very long. In addition, there are all
kinds of bridge structures with very
tight construction schedules. The de-
mand for various construction equip-
ments in the area was extensive; the
number of vessels added up to 200, in-
cluding the 85 m-tall fully rotating pil-
ing ships, and two lifting vessels with
2500 t capacity each. Moreover, there
were also a great number of off-shore
operation platforms, temporary bridg-
es for construction, operational docks,
and a 350 000 m2 large scale pre-fabri-
cation site for bridge parts to help push
through the project.2
Off-shore Non-navigational
Spans
Span Arrangement
For the design of the non-navigational
spans, the bridge designers have taken
multiple factors into consideration.
Numerical analysis indicates that when
the span exceeds 50 m, the influence of
piers on the tidal current is negligible.
Structures Worldwide 67
1/24/08 9:41:14 AM
 Bridge Bridge type and span Bridge length Sub-structure Superstructure
location (m) (m)
50 m span
Pre-cast concrete
Prestressed Concrete Cast-in-situ with travelling
Beach area 1300 pipe pile, cast-in-situ
(PC) continuous formwork span by span
pier
girder
60 m span PC
10 700 Driven steel-pipe
Area in continuous girder Pre-fabricated and erected
pile pre-fabricated
open sea 70 m span PC in one complete span
10 780 pier
continuous girder
Main span 420 m Composite box girder
Main Cast-in-situ pile,
cable-stayed bridge 830 symmetrically erected with
channel cast-in-situ pier
with double pylons cantilever method
Main span 2 × 120 m
380
PC continuous girder
Three
Main span 2 × 140 m Cast-in-situ pile, Cast-in-situ with cantilever
auxiliary 440
PC continuous girder cast-in-situ pier method
channels
Main span 2 × 160 m
500
PC continuous girder
Area near 50 m span PC Cast-in-situ pile, Cast-in-situ with launching
400
island continuous girder cast-in-situ pier method
Area at port 50 m span PC Cast-in-situ pile Cast-in-situ with travelling
350
connection continuous girder cast-in-situ pier formwork span by span
Main span 322 m Composite plate girder
Area at port Cast-in-situ pile,
cable-stayed bridge 710 symmetrically erected with
connection cast-in-situ pier
With double pylons cantilever method

Table 1: General information of the bridge

Under this premise, the designers have
studied the global effects on this proj-
ect by adoption of different spans,
structural styles, and construction
methods; they conclude that it is most
economical to adopt 60 and 70 m span
PC box girders for the superstructure,
and 1,5 m diameter steel-pipe piles for
the foundations. The PC box girder
is pre-fabricated and installed in one
complete span that helps to meet the
construction deadline, decrease off-
shore workloads, reduce construction
risk, and improve project quality. It is
a very popular span arrangement that
six to seven 60 m span or five to six
70 m span PC box girders form one
continuous unit.
Considering that the tidal current
and the scouring depth increases pro-
gressively from seashore to open sea,
and the direction of current is more
variable far from the seashore, the de-
signers adopt two different kinds of
span – 60 and 70 m, especially more of
60 m spans than 70 m at areas close to
the seashore.
Superstructure
Generally the engineering cost of 60
and 70 m span girders with the constant
depth is only just a little bit more expen-
sive than those with the varying depth;
therefore, considering that easier fabri-
cation, transportation, and installation,
the constant depth is adopted for both
kinds of girders – 3,5 m high for 60 m
span girders and 4,0 m for 70 m span
girders. Another important advantage
is that the girders with constant depth
can be simply-supported at piers easily,
and the top plan of piers can provide
good working place for construction
of the wet joints between the simply-
supported spans at open sea.
The bridge is divided into two separate
bridge decks transversely. The 60 and
70 m span girders are single-box struc-
tures made of high-performance con-
crete with specified strength 32,4 MPa.
The deck is 15,25 m wide and the bot-
tom slab 7,25 m wide. The cantilever
of the top slab extends 4,0 m. The top
slab is 0,26–0,55 m thick. The web and
bottom slab at the centre of the span
are 0,4 and 0,25 m thick respectively,
increasing in thickness at supports ac-
cording to the stress level. The main
girder is pre-stressed in all three direc-
tions internally; meanwhile, external
pre-stressing ducts are reserved for fu-
ture use. There are two kinds of longi-
tudinal pre-stressing specifications, 12
and 17 high strength strands of 15,2 mm
diameter. The transverse pre-stressing
adopts three 15,2 mm diameter high
strength strands, and the vertical pre-
stressing adopts 32 mm diameter high
strength deformed pre-stressing bar.
One piece of 60 m span girder weighs
1700 t and 70 m span girder 2000 t.
The 0,8 m thick cross beam at the end
of the side span is pre-fabricated to-
gether with the girder. As the 1,6 m
thick cross beam at the middle support
is cast-in-situ with the wet joint later,
there is no cross beam pre-fabricated
in plant for middle-span girder; there-
fore, the measure has to be taken to
enhance torsion stiffness by strength-
ening the end sections of middle-span
girder so as to meet stress requirement
during girder transportation and in-
stallation.
Sixty and seventy meter box girders
are pre-fabricated in one complete
span at the same pre-fabrication plant.
All the girders are drawn to the dock
with sliding method and lifted, and
then installed by two different lifting
vessels (illustrated in Figs. 2–4).
After a girder is simply-supported at
piers, the jacks are used to slightly ad-
just the girder into accurate position.
The error must be controlled when
the girder is placed. Combined with
the oceanic conditions and the crane
performance, the error allowance of

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Fig. 2: 60 m-span girder erected
Fig. 3: 70 m-span girder erected
Fig. 4: Simply-supported girders
placing a girder should be ±150 mm in
longitudinal and transverse directions,
respectively; the final error allowance
of the girder position is ±10 mm in two
directions respectively after accurate
adjustment. The error of the elevation
for the pier should be accurately ad-
justed before the girders are installed.
After girder installation, the wet joints
are cast-in-situ and then the continu-
ous bridge is formed.
Substructure
Both the 60 and the 70 m span con-
tinuous girders adopt steel-pipe pile
foundations. In order to decrease wave
forces from different directions, two
separate decks of the bridge have in-
dependent circular pile caps. The tall
piers on either side of the navigational
span bridge have many piles because of
the large forces exerted on their foun-
dations, thus two transversely aligned
piers share one integrated polygon-
shaped pile cap. In order to effectively
resist the horizontal force and to de-
crease displacement, the steel-pipe piles
are all inclined. The maximum inclina-
Structural Engineering International 1/2008
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tion is 1 : 4,5 and each pile is about 60 m
long. The wall of the steel-pipe pile is
18 mm thick at the bottom, welded in
spiral seam. To withstand larger stress
and to reserve partial corrosive thick-
ness, the steel-pipe pile wall thickness
increases to 25 mm at the top, welded
in straight seam. These piles are pro-
tected from corrosion by the sacrificial
protective layer besides the partially
corrosive reserved thickness.
The circular pile cap for a 70 m span
continuous girder has diameter of 11 m.
Eight 1,5 m diameter steel-pipe piles
are evenly arranged in a circle with
7,4 m diameter. Meanwhile, the circu-
lar pile cap for a 60 m span continuous
girder has a diameter of 10 m. One of
seven 1,5 m diameter steel-pipe piles is
arranged at the centre and the rest are
Fig. 5: Pile being driven
evenly arranged on the circumference
of a 6,4 m diameter circle.
The pre-fabricated concrete cofferdam
with 300 mm thick walls is adopted for
the pile cap. While lifting the coffer-
dam to position and casting the bot-
tom-sealed concrete, all construction
loads are taken by the steel-pipe piles.
Each pier has four steel-pipe piles to
support the cofferdam.
In this part, there are 4862 steel-pipe
piles, 510 separate pile caps and 74 in- Fig. 6: Piles driven
tegrated ones.
As most of the bridge spans are far
from the seashore, the steel-pipe piles
are driven with “piling ship” equipped
with the domestic manufacture D125-3
diesel hammer, and the GPS is used for
positioning of the piles. The maximum
length of the steel-pipe pile that can be
driven is 85 m; therefore, all steel-pipe
piles of the bridge are driven up to de-
sign elevation without any site welding
joints (illustrated in Figs. 5–7).
Fig. 7: Concrete cofferdam erected
There are about 700 pile caps for the
non-navigational bridge. The construc-
tion of the pile caps is greatly influ-
must be installed right after cofferdam
enced by wind, wave and flow at open
installation to resist the wave and flow.
sea, so the designers have to adopt the
After bottom sealing concrete is cast,
concrete cofferdam with large stiffness,
the concrete pile cap can be cast by
small deformation, and good perfor-
layers in a dry circumstance.
mance to resist wave and current forces.
One set of demountable steel bracing The non-navigational bridge has about
beams with multiple functions is in- 800 piers pre-fabricated and erected in
stalled within the concrete cofferdam. segments. Each segment is about 12 m
During construction, the weight of cof- high and weighs about 300 t. The wet
ferdam and bottom sealing concrete concrete joint is cast-in-situ to connect
is transferred to the steel-pipe piles the pre-fabricated box-section pier
through the steel beams. The instal- shaft with the pile cap (illustrated in
lation of the cofferdam is carried out Figs. 8–10). The cast-in-situ wet joint
during the quiet tide time period (illus- can also cover pre-fabricated pier shaft
trated in Fig. 10); and then the connec- and its reinforcements to improve the
tion between the cofferdam and piles structural durability.
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Fig. 8: Pier pre-fabricated
Fig. 9: Pier being transported
Fig. 10: Pier erected
When the pier is pre-fabricated, it is
very important to control the bottom
surface levelness, pier height and incli-
nation strictly. Six short concrete posts
with inclined surface are installed
accurately on top of pile cap as the
guide positioning device, and the pier
shaft can slide into position along the
inclined surface when it is installed.
After welding some reinforcements
of pile cap and pier together, the pier
can strengthen its stability at once, and
then connect all reinforcements and
cast the wet joint concrete.
Main Channel Bridge
Bridge Proposal
The main navigational channel bridge
is a 420 m main span cable-stayed
bridge, designed according to the
navigational requirements. The main
considerations include managing con-
struction progress, ensuring structural
durability and smooth operation under
traffic loading. The design loading is
about 110 kN/m longitudinally distrib-
uted along the bridge after considering
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x293.indd 70
the discount of lane loads, which is
equivalent to 0,8 times the Euro Rail-
way Standard UIC loading of the dou-
ble-line railway.
There are many options for a main
girder with this kind of span of cable-
stayed bridge such as steel box girder,
concrete box girder, steel-concrete
composite plate girder, and steel-
concrete composite box girder. After
detailed study of the options and con-
sideration of many factors such as con-
struction speed, structural stiffness to
resist heavy live loads, service life of
deck pavement and bridge engineering
cost, finally, the designers have chosen
steel-concrete composite box girder as
the main girder to satisfy the service
and environmental conditions and to
meet the project deadline as well.
Configuration
The main navigation channel bridge is
a five-span 73 + 132 + 420 + 132 + 73 m
(in total length of 830 m) cable-stayed
bridge with double pylons, single cable
plane, and auxiliary piers (illustrated
in Fig. 11). The auxiliary piers are de-
signed to improve the stiffness of the
bridge and reduce stresses applied to
the girder and pylons.
The main girder is a steel-concrete
composite box structure, while the
main pylons are reinforced concrete.
The stay cables, which are composed
of galvanized parallel wires of 7 mm
diameter, adopt HiAm anchorage sys-
tem. The stay cables along the centre
73 132
Fig. 11: Layout of the main bridge (units: m)
3300/2
50 1425
2%
450 200 1000
Fig. 12: Girder cross section (units: m)
Structural Engineering International 1/2008
line of the deck consist of two parallel
planes separated by 2,0 m. There are 24
pairs of stay cables arranged on either
side of the pylon. They are arranged
with 8 m spacing along the girder and
2,2 m spacing along the height of the
pylons. The main pylon is supported on
pile foundation, which is composed of
38 bored piles, and each pile is 110 m
long and 2,5 m in diameter.
Superstructure
The 4,0 m deep main girder is a steel–
concrete structure of three-cell single-
box section (illustrated in Figs. 12
and 13). The top plate of the girder
box, made from concrete of specified
strength 35,5 MPa, is 33,0 m wide with
two 4,5 m wide cantilevers. The rest of
the box is made from bridge structural
steel with yield strength 345 MPa.
The concrete deck is generally 280
mm thick, and increases to 550 mm on
top of the web. The typical steel seg-
ment is composed of 16 mm thick bot-
tom plates and diagonal web plates, as
well as 24 mm thick vertical webs and
web flanges. The plates of other steel
segments at the pylon bottom and on
top of the side and auxiliary piers are
thicker than that of the typical ones.
The bottom plates and webs are stiff-
ened by 8 mm thick U-shaped ribs. The
diaphragms of the main girder are steel
trusses with 24 mm thick top flanges.
For the design of typical steel-concrete
box girder, the designers adopt two
types of shear studs with 22 mm dia-
830
420 132 73
3300/2
175 175 1425 50
2%
400
1000 200 450
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Fig. 13: Composite box girder
meter for the connection between the
steel box structure and the concrete
deck. One type is 450 mm long, set
at the edge of the top steel flange to
counteract the transverse bending mo-
ments, and another type is 200 mm
long.
The main pylons are made from rein-
forced concrete with specified strength
of 32,4 MPa. The section above the
deck is an inverted “Y” shape. Below
the deck is a box structure with un-
even width. In the transversal direction
of the bridge, the dimensions of the
upper, middle, and lower part of the
pylon are 7, 4,2, and 37–28 m respec-
tively, corresponding to a longitudinal
width of 8 m.
Steel anchor girders are used for two-
thirds of the stay cables in the anchor-
age zone, and rigidly connected to the
pylon wall. The other one-third of the
cables is anchored directly to the con-
crete pylon wall due to their smaller
horizontal component force.
There are a total of 224 stayed cables
that are fabricated with galvanized
parallel wires. Each cable consists of a
maximum of 283 wires or minimum of
121 wires of 7 mm diameter.
The deck segments are fabricated in-
factory and then installed with the can-
tilever method (Fig. 14). The segments
at the top of the auxiliary piers and at
the end of the side spans are floated
and hung by floating cranes. Typical
segments are floated to the site and
then hung and installed by cranes on
the girder. After the installation of seg-
ment, first the steel structures have to be
connected and then wet joint concrete
between segments has to be cast. There
exists compressive forces applied to the
top concrete deck because of the ten-
sion of stay cables; thus the cables can
be installed and tensioned 1 or 2 days
after casting the joint concrete, and al-
lowing the concrete to reach sufficient
strength to resist the compressive
stresses. It takes approximately 4–5
days to install each segment.
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Fig. 14: Cantilever construction
There are 107 segments for the whole
bridge, including 96 typical segments,
the 8 m long closure segment, eight
5,0 m long segments near the pylons,
and two 6,58 m side span segments
(Fig. 15). All the segments are pre-
fabricated in-factory, except 0,5 m long
concrete deck at both ends. These two
ends have to be filled with joint con-
crete on-site, as to ensure the quality
of construction. The segments should
be fabricated in the following sequ-
ence: (a) fabricate parts of the steel
Fig. 15: View of main bridge
structures, (b) assemble the steel struc-
tures with no less than 5 segments at
the same time, (c) cast the concrete
deck after quality of the structure is
verified.
Substructure
Two main pylons are founded on two
pile foundations, each of which is com-
posed of 38 bored piles of 2,5 m dia-
meter and 110 m length. A pile cap is
28 m wide, 56 m long and 7 m deep.
The pylon foundation is designed longi-
tudinally and transversally according
to wave impact and ship impact forces,
respectively.
The main pylon foundations are con-
structed with the assistance of plat-
forms that are designed as the steel-pipe
truss structure (illustrated in Fig. 16)
from the experience of petroleum
platform at open sea. A steel coffer-
dam (illustrated in Fig. 17) is adopted
for the construction of pile cap. The
steel cofferdams and the platforms are
fabricated individually and floated to
the site, and then connected to each
other. The pylon foundations are con-
structed in the following sequence:
(a) establish guiding piles and steel
casings, (b) construct the bored piles,
(c) cast the bottom sealing concrete,
(d) cast the concrete of pile caps (illu-
strated in Fig. 18).
Since combined structures of steel-
pipe truss platform and steel coffer-
dam provided significant stiffness to
Fig. 16: Steel-pipe truss
Fig. 17: Steel-pipe truss and steel cofferdam
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Fig. 18: Casting pile cap
resist large wave and flow forces app-
lied on the foundations, not only the
construction period is saved but also
the structure is safer. This method has
been widely spread in the course of the
engineering construction of the whole
Donghai Bridge.3
Conclusion
A number of construction methods
for this project have been adopted
for the first time in China: the con-
crete components of the bridge are
72 Structures Worldwide
x293.indd 72
mostly pre-fabricated and erected References
by the cranes, including the coffer-
dam for the pile cap, the pier shaft of [1] Yang Zhifang. Practices of technical inno-
vation on Donghai bridge. Donghai Bridge J.
300 t weight, and one complete span
5/2004. pp. 8–11.
girder of 2000 t weight; the cast-in-
situ wet joint between the pre-fab- [2] Huang Rong, Guo Zhenwen, Huang Shaow-
ricated pier and the cast-in-situ pile en, Bi Guiping. Integral construction for crossing
sea bridge. Donghai Bridge J. 4/2004. pp. 13–19.
cap can provides good durability; the
error allowance of erection at open [3] Zhou Dongsheng, Xu Wei, Zhou Xiannian.
sea can be controlled accurately; the Construction technology of platform for crossing
sea bridge. Donghai Bridge J. 1/2005. pp. 32–35.
steel-pipe pile, 80 m long, is entirely
driven into the designed elevation
without any site joints. A large num-
ber of tasks originally required to be
SEI Data Block
completed off shore are completed on
shore, which not only reduce the risk Owner name:
during project implementation but Shanghai Tongsheng Major Bridge
also greatly accelerate the progress Construction Ltd., China
of the project, ensuring to keep the
very tight completion schedule. Hav- Other details:
ing completed the bridge in less than Concrete overall (m3): 1 600 000
four years, the review of the construc- Steel material overall (t): 340 000
tion process clearly indicates that the
Total cost (USD billions): 1,3
technical plan is very successful for
the first long-span sea-crossing bridge Construction period (months): 40
in China. Many thanks are presented Service Date: October, 2005
to the owner, who provided extensive
data and photographs for this paper.
Structural Engineering International 1/2008
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