RECENT ACHIEVEMENTS IN BRIDGE

ENGINEERING IN CHINA

，Wenjin Huang**
Baochun Chen*，

*College off Civil Engineering, Fuzhou University,

523# Gongye Rd., Fuzhou 350002, China
*E-mail: baochunchen@fzu.edu.cn
**E-mail: monkin@sina.com.cn

Keywords: Bridge engineering, achievement, China, last ten years

Abstract: Bridge engineering in China has experienced a rapid development since 1980.
Recent achievments of bridge engineering in China in the last decade are presented in this
paper, especially the long-span and large scale bridges.
China has a vast territory with many rivers. Throughout history, thousands of bridges have
been built erected and high prestige has been achieved, such as stone arch bridges and
suspension footbridges. Since 1980, alongwith the opening and reform in China, economic
development needs transportation to grow ahead, which results large scale constuction of
highway and rail, many long-span bridgs and large scale bridge engineerings have been
built1,2. By the end of last year, China has more than 320,000 highway bridges with a total
length of 13,376km ， in which 717 have a length over 1000m. Valuable technical
experiences and scientific researches bring lots of achievements in bridge engineering, such
as design thoery, calculation methods, construction technology, testing methods,
applification of new materials and supporting installations. This paper briefly presents an
overview of the acheivements in long-span bridge--suspension bridge, cable stayed bridge,
arch bridge and large scale bridge in the last ten years.

1.SUSPENSION BRIDGE
According to historical records, bamboo cable bridge has appeared in 285 B.C. in the
south-west of China. The iron-chain bridge is said to date as far back as the early time of
the Western Han Dynasty (B. C. 206) and by a clear historical record, an iron chains
crossed the Yantze River in A. D. 280. From 1960 to 1980, some flexible suspension bridge
with narrow width and small spans for light live loads were built in mountainous areas.
In 1995, Shantou Bay Bridge in Guangdong Province was completed as the first modern
long-span suspension bridge in China. A prestressed concrete box girder serves as both the
bridge roadway and the stiffening girder for the suspension system. The 452m main span in
this bridge is the longest span of a suspension bridge with prestressed concrete stiffening
girders in the world.
The 900m long Xilin Yangtze River Bridge (Fig. 1) was built in 1996 for the special
highway (loading of 78-ton trucks) for the Three Gorges Dam. The all-welded orthotropic
steel box girder was the first time selected as a stiffening girder in suspension bridge in
China. In 1997, the Humen Bridge (Fig. 2) with a main span of 888m was completed,
which is the first long-span suspension bridge in the typhoon-prone zone in China. These
two bridges with steel stiffening girders is a remark the coming of an era for long span
modern suspension bridge in China.
After that, two suspension bridges with a span over 1000m were open to traffic. In 1998,
Tsingma Bridge in Hong Kong was open with a 1377m long main span, which is the
longest double deck bridge for both highway and railway traffic in the world. One year later,
in 1999, Jiangyin Yangtze River Bridge with a 1385m main span over Yangtze River was
the longest bridge in China and the fourth longest bridge in the world at that time.

Figure 1: Xilin Yangtze River Bridge Figure 2: Humen Bridge

Jiangyin Yangtze River Bridge (Fig. 3) located in Jiangsu Province, is 3,071m in total
length and designed to the standard of six-lane expressway. The main cables are made of
parallel high-strength wires, which are galvanized and welded. Sag-to-span ratio of the
main cable is 1/10.5 and the distance of two centers of main cables is 32.5m. The total
weight of the two main cables is 16,800 tons. With a length of 2,200m, the diameter of the
mid-span cable is 0.86m while that of the side-span 0.89m. Each cable consists of 169
bunches each made of 127 steel wires, each of which is 0.00535m in diameter. The total
length of steel wires is 95,000 kilometers. Each hanger cables space by 16m along the main
cable.

Figure 3 : Jiangyin Yangtze River Bridge

The main girder is made of flat streamline steel box girders, joined by pre-stressed
continuous concrete girders of the same depth in two side spans. The box girder is 32.5m
wide and 3.02m high, with a total girder width of 36.9m including the two cantilevers3.
The main tower formed by two tower columns and three tranverse beams is a reinforced
concrete structure with a height of 190m. Since the north bank has a soil covering of over
80m on bedrock, a gravity structure 69.51m long and 51m wide was selected for the
anchorage. As the largest open caisson in the world, it goes as deep as 58m and took 20
months to complete. The south tower is a gravity struture built on bedrock. Due to the great
size and construction depth, the anchor was an extremely difficult substructure work. In
order to reduce the uneven settlement of the caisson during constrution, the 5m wide
concrete mass behind the anchorage was not poured until the erection of the stiffening
girders was completed.

(a) Construction of the catwalk (b) Erection of stiffening girders

Figure 4: Construction of Jiangyin Yangtze River Bridge

Construction of Jiangying Bridge begun in August, 1994 and was completed in September,
1999. About 74,900 tons of steel and 453,000 tons of concrete were used in the bridge and
the total cost of the bridge was USD＄330 million. The height clearance for navigation is
50m for 50,000-tonnage vessels.
In the last year, 2005, Runyang Yangtze River Bridge Engineering was completed, which
consists of six components, inluding north link road, Beicha Bridge, Shiyezhou Interchange
Bridge, Nancha Bridge, south link road and extension part engineering. The Nancha Bridge
is a suspension bridge with a main span of 1490m, ranking first in China and third in the
world (Fig. 5). Generally we call this suspension bridge as the Runyang Yangtze River
Bridge.
Runyang Yangtze River Bridge was designed as a part of expressway in dual six lanes with
a net width of 32.5m. The bridge is a single-span suspension bridge, stiffening by steel box
girders. The main cable, composed of 23,368 steel wires with a total length of 60.75 million
meters was wrapped with 3,2000km steel wires. Each main cable consists of 184 bunches
each made of 127 Zinc-coated steel wires, each of which is 5.35mm in diameter. The
stiffening girders are made of flat steel box with a wide of 38.7m and hight of 3.0m fixed
by 47 hoisting sections formed by 93 prefabricated sections. The stiffening girder is total of
1,485.23m long and weighs 21,000t with the heaviest section up to 506t.

Figure 5 : Runyang Yangtze River Bridge

As the longest suspension bridge in China, many advanced technologies have been applied
to this bridge. Two central bands of rigid triangular steel structures were designed to
connect the cables and the stiffening girders at the midspan (Fig. 6 (a)) to replace short
hangers and enhance the rigidity of the bridge. In the cable protection system, s-shaped
wire wrapping was used instead of roun wire wrapping and make its airproof more effect;
moreover, a cable dehumidification system or dry air injection system was adopted to inject
dry air into the cable as shown in Fig. 6 (b).

(a) Central band (b) Dry air injection cover

Figure 6 : Detail structure of Runyang Yangtze River Bridge
 The method of row piles with continuous frozen wall outside to prevent water was adopted
on the south anchorage foundation. The foundation pit’s dimension is 69m×50m and was
excavated into a depth of 29m. In the north anchorage foundation with the same size in
plane as that of the north one but deep of 48m, an underground retaining wall was used as
the biggest one in China. New and advanced technologies have been developed and used in
the construction of the superstructure for this long span suspension bridge, such as the
anti-storm and vibration-resistance catwalk system without wind cables, main cable strand
hauling system and hydraulic deck lifting gantry 4.
Other new technologies and science research carried out in this bridge include the 10,0000t
pile capacity test; informationized construction, monitoring and controlling for the deep and
large foundation pit; new techniques and equipments in the superstructure construction and
concrete durability technique, etc. The construction of this bridge was started in 2000 and
finished in 2005. The total investment of Runyang Yangtze River is 5.8 billion RMB3.
Ten suspension bridges with a main span larger than 450m have been built in China as
listed in Table 1. In these bridges, the towers are reinforced concrete structures. Except the
Shantou Bay Bridge with a PC box girder as the stiffening girder, steel box girders and steel
truss girders are used as stiffening girders, the former generally used in great span bridge in
coast area and the latter used in the mountain area. Most of the cables are made of parable
wire strands 3.

Table 1 Suspension bridge in China (L≥450m)

Service Main
Bridge Name Structure type
Year span(m)
Runyang Yangtze River Bridge 2005 1490 Single-span with steel-box girder
Jiangyin Yangtze River Bridge 1999 1385 Single-span with steel-box girder
Tsingma Bridge 1998 1377 Single-span with steel-box girder
Yichang Yangze River Bridge 2001 960 Single-span with steel-box girder
Xilin Yangtze River Bridge 1996 900 Single-span with steel box girder
Humen Bridge 1997 888 Single-span with steel-box girder
Haicang Bridge 1999 648 Three-span with continuous steel-box girder
Ehonhyan Bridge 2000 600 Three-span with continuous steel-box girder
Zhongxian Yangtze River Bridge 2001 560 Single-span with steel truss girder
Shantou Bay Bridge 1995 452 Three-span with continuous PC-box girder
Most of modern suspension bridges in China are single-span bridges, some of them are
three-spans. The Haicang Bridge located in Xiamen is a typical three-span suspension
bridge as shown in Fig. 7. The span arrangement is 230m+648m+230m with a continues
floating steel box girder with a flat streamlined box of 3m in depth in the center and 36.6m
in width. The tower is a 128.025m high frame structure supported by bored piles. The
anchor blocks are gravity anchorages of triangle frames. The main cables are prefabricated
by PWS process with 110 parallel wire bundles, each one has 91Φ5.1mm steel wires. The
ratio of the span to the sag of it is 1/10.5. The interval between two hangers is 12m. The
bridge was opened in 1999.

Figure 7 : Haicang Bridge Figure 8: Image view of Xihoumen Bridge

New suspension bridges are still under construction in China, two of them have a main span
over 1,000m. One is the Wuhan Yangloujiang Bridge with a main span of 1280m, the other
is the Xihoumen Bridge (Fig. 8) in Zhejiang Province with a span of 1650m. The span
arrangement of the Xihoumen Bridge is 578m+1650m+485m. A two-span continuous
stiffening girder between the north anchorage and the south tower has a total length of
2228m. The bridge is a part in the connection road engineering project of the Zhoushan
Island to the mainland. The road with a total length of 48km, including 23.745km of several
bridges need a estimate investment of 10.8 billion RMB. The bridge will be finished in
2009.

2. CABLE-STAYED BRIDGE
The first two cable-stayed bridges were completed in China in 1975, Xinwu Bridge in
Shanghai with a main span of 54m and Tangxi Bridge with a main span of 75.8m. The Jinan
Yellow River Bridge with a main span of 220m completed in 1982 can be regarded as a
successful achievement in learning stage of the cable-stayed bridge construction. In 1980s,
more than 30 cable-stayed bridges were constructed in China, such as the Yonghe Bridge in
Tianjin with a span of 260m, the Dongying Bridge in Shandong Province with a span of
288m as the first steel cable-stayed bridges in China, The Haiyang Bridge in Guangzhou
with a widtest deck of 35m in single cable plane, etc.
In 1990s, with the completion of the Nanpu Bridge and Yangpu Bridge in Shanghai cross
over the Huangpu River, the span record of the cable-stayed bridge in China advaced from
200m to 400m and 600m. These two bridges use steel beam-concrete deck composite
structure as the girders. In 2001, Qingzhou Min River Bridge (Fig. 9) in Fuzhou was
completed, its main-span of 605m long breaking the span record of 602m in Yangpu Bridge
and ranking first among the compsite-girder cable-stayed bridges in the world.
Qingzhou Min River Bridge is a double-pylon double-plane cable-stayed bridge with 5
continuous spans of 41.13m+250m+605m+250m+50m with one supplemental pier in each
side span. The 1,193m-total long bridge was designed to carry six lanes of traffic with 29m
wide. The bridge is located in the coastal areal with abouding typhoon. The design charactic
wind velocity is 46.3m/s, and the critical flutter wind velocity is 70m/s. The total
investment for the bridge is 750 million RMB.

(a) Completed (b) Under construction

Figure 9 : Qingzhou Min River Bridge

The two diamond-shaped towers are of reinforced concrete. The height of the towers
reaches 175.5 m having 145.5 m above the bridge deck. Deck consists of a concrete slab
supported by two main deep steel plate girders with floor beams spaced at 4.5m. The
I-shaped steel girder is 1,123m long and 2.45m high, and its height-span raito is 1/202
which is advanced for the same type around the world. The transverse distance of two main
steel girder’s centers is 27m.
There are altogether 168 steel strand cables and these cable are arranged in a fan shape with
an interval of 13.5m on the main girder. The longest cable is above 312 m. The pylon fixed
connect to the pier is 175.5m high and its top is 145.5m above the deck. Two tower column
of the diamond-shaped pylon are jointed by two crossbeams. The foudation adopted 43
steel piles of 2m diameter for one of the main tower and 14 bored RC piles of 3m diameter
for the other foundation.
In 1999, the Queshi Bridge with a main span of 518m across Shantou Bay in Guangdong
Province was built as the first steel and concrete hybridd deck cable-stayed bridge in China
and resulted in widely construction long-span cable-stayed bridges of steel box girders,
such as the Baixhazhou Yantze River Bridge in Wuhan with a main span of 618m
completed in 2000 and the Second Nanjing Yantze River Bridge with a main span of 628m
completed in 2001.
The Second Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge (see Fig. 10) consists of Nancha Bridge and
Beicha Bridge. Nancha Bridge is a cable-stayed bridge with 5 continuous spans of
58.5m+246.5m+628m+246.5m+58.5m. Nancha Bridge is generally called simply as the
Second Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge.
The steel deck of the bridge with a continues length of 1233.9m has a streamline shape of a
box section girder high 3.5m and 38.2m wide at the top ( including wind nose). A standard
length of a segment is 15m. The tower set up on the main piers appear as A-shpaes having a
height of 195.41m. The stay cables are arranged on composed of 7mm diameter parallel
zinc-plated steel wires. The cables are arranged in fan shape, each is comprised of 20 pairs
of cables with an interval of 15m on the main span and 12m on the side span. In order to
reduce vibration, rubber damping elements are placed on the cables and hydraulic buffers
are used on the girder.
For the simplification of construction, tensioning of the stay-cables was carried out only
during the installation of its corresponding girder, without further adjustment after
anchoring. The foundation of the pylon is a dual-wall steel cofferdam and a footing with 21
bored piles. In order to counter uplift forces on the transition and supplement piers, a ballast
weight of 1500t is applied to the supplement pier. To ensure wind safety during
construction, a temporary pier was built 160m away from the pylon in the side span.
Construction was started in 1997 and completed in 2001. The bridge used 23,000 tons of
steel, 2,100 tons of Zinc-coated steel wire for the cable, and 10,748 m3 of concrete. The
total investment of the Second Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge is about 3 billion RMB.
In China, reinforced concrete towers are commonly adopted in cable-stayed bridges, whose
types were mostly H-shaped in the earlier stage and have gradually become the shapes of
diamond and lozenge. However, in the Third Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge, steel towers
are adopted as the first time in cable-stayed bridge in China as shown in Fig. 11. This
cable-stayed structure is the longest span cable stayed bridge in China now, measuring
1,288m, with a main span of 648m. Its five span arrangment is
63m+257m+648m+257m+63m.

Figure 10 : Second Nanjing Yangtze Figure 11 : Image view of the Third

River Bridge Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge

The towers set up on the main piers appera as A-shapes with a curvature line for the
columns and having a height of 215m above the piers, four crossbeams are used to connect
the two tower columns together. The lowest part (36.318m-high) of the tower column and
the bottom corssbeam are reinforced concrete structures. The rest parts of the towers
(178.682m) are made of steel box columns with a outline radius of 720m. Each steel
column has a cross section of 5.0m×6.8m with four cut corners of 0.7m × 0.8m. The joints
of the steel and the RC column are located just under the deck, fixed to the bottom cross
beam and the PBL shear keys are used.

Figure 12 : Construction site of the Third Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge

The steel box girders are made up of 89 segments. The bridge belongs to the floating
system with longitudinal elastic constraint, which restricts longitudinal movement of the
steel-box-girder under live load or wind load.
Construction of its foundations is not a easy work for the water is as deep as 50m flowing
in a velocity of 3m/s. Each dumbell-shaped foundation of the main piers is 84m long and
29m wide with a total height of 22m, using 30 bored RC piles surrounded by steel boxed
cofferdam. The bridge was open to traffic at October, 2005.
Multi-span cable-stayed bridges have also been constructed in China. The Ting Kau Bridge
in Hong Kong with three towers uses a couple of independent cables to keep the balance of
the central tower. Dongting Lake Bridge (Fig. 13) in Hunan Province and Yilin Yangtze
River Bridge (Fig. 14) are also PC cable-stayed bridge with three towers. In the former, the
main span is 310m and a full floating system in longitudinal direction is used. In the latter,
the central span is 348m. Its girder is fixed with the pylon at the middle pylon and separated
from the side pylons as a float. The low grade concrete is filled in box iat the side spans as
balance weight.

Figure 13 : Dongting Lake Bridge Figure 14 : Yilin Yangtze River Bridge

Having developed for about 30 years, more than 50 cable stayed bridges have been built in
China. In these bridges the structure types are various, for tower’s type, there are signle
tower, double tower and triple tower; for the cable plane arrangment, there are parallel
double cable planes, spatial double cable planes and signle central cable plane; for bridge
girders, there are prestrressed concrete structure, steel and composite structures . Table 2
lists the such bridges with a main span in the top ten of them 4.
At present, two cable stayed bridges with a main span over 1000m are under construction in
China, i.e., Stonecutters bridge in Hong Kong with a main span of 1018m and the Sutong
Yangtze River Bridge in Jiangsu Province with a main span of 1088m.
Sutong Yangtze River Bridge has a total length of about 32km, in which about 8.2km cross
the Yangtze River. The main bridge (Fig. 15 (a)) is a 2,088m long cable-stayed bridge
with 7 continuous spans arranged as 100m+100m+300m+1088m+300m+100m+100m. The
 main span of 1088m is the longest span of cable stayed bridge in the world.

Table 2 Cable stayed bridge in China (L≥500m)

Main
Service
Bridge Name span Structrure type
Year
(m)
Third Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge 2005 648 5-span with Steel girders and steel towers
Second Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge 2001 628 5-span with Steel girder
Steel girder in central span and concrete
Wuhan Baishazhou Bridge 1999 618
girder in two side spans
Fuzhou Qingzhou Min River Bridge 2001 605 Steel-concrete composite girder

Shanghai Yangpu Bridge 1993 602 Steel-concrete composite girder

Steel-concrete composite girder in central

Shanghai Xupu Bridge 1996 590
span and concrete girder in two side spans
Zhouxhan Taoyaomen Bridge 2003 580 Steel girder
Queshi Bridge 1998 518 Mixed steel and RC box girder
Anqing Yangtze River Bridge 2005 510 Steel girder
Jingzhou Yangtze River Bridge 2002 500 Concrete girder

(a) Image view (b) Construction site

Figure 15 : Sutong Yangtze River Bridge

The pylons of A-shape are a steel structures, height of 300.40m including 230.41m over the
deck. The ratio of pylon height-to-span is 0.212. Both the auxiliary piers and the
transitional piers are separated thin-walled rectagular reinforced concrete piers with a
dimension of 8.5m×5.0m in plane and about 60m height. Total of 131 bored piers with a
diameter of 280cm surrounded by steel boxed cofferdam are adopted for the foundation of
the main towers (Fig. 15 (b)). The foundation of the main bridge are designed with enough
ability to resist ship collision without any collison energy absorption measurements. Total
of 272 stay cables are arranged on sloning planes, in which the longest one hase a length of
577m. The steel box girder in streamline shape 41m wide at the top is made up by 141
segments with a heavist hoisting weight of 450t.
Construction of the bridge started in 2004. The planning construction period will last 6
years and finished in 2009. The gross estimated investment is 6.45 billion RMB.

3. ARCH BRIDGE
China has a long history in construction of arch bridge. Some of the well-known ancient
stone arch bridges are still in service, such as the famous Chaw-Zhou Bridge, completed in
605 A.D., with 37.4m single span, 7.23m rise and 9m-roadway width 1. Stone arch bridges
are adopted widely in highways in 1950-1970s. Even at present, they are also used in hilly
or mountainous areas. New Danhe Bridge, located in Shanxi Province and opened to traffic
in 2000, is a stone arch bridge with a span of 146m and deck width of 24.8m. The thickness
of section is 250cm at the arch crown and 350cm at the arch spring. It ranks as the world’s
longest span stone arch bridge. However, stone arch is completely unstable until the arch
rib enclosed. Therefore it should be built by elaborating scaffolding, or "centering," below
the spans to support them during arch rib construction. In many cases, it is not an economy
bridge type to be considered. After 1990s, only four stone arch bridges with a span larger
than 100m has been built.
Because labor, material of concrete are cheaper in China, reinforced concrete arch bridges
were economic to be built for a long time until 1980s. However, concrete arch bridges are
difficult to build for self-weight. Therefore, great efforts have been made in China to reduce
the structural weight and to increase the span. Double curved arch, trussed arch and rigid
frame arch are all light structures developed from the solid-ribbed arch. The cable crane
method, swing method and embedded falsework method are also developed in the arch
erection.
With the development of construction technology and improvement of design methods, the
span record of reinforced concrete arch bridges in China has been refreshed continually.
Yongjiang Bridge, located in Yongning, Guangxi, is a reinforced concrete arch bridge with
a main span of 312m (Fig. 16). The arch ribs were cast in site by means of embedded
formwork method. The steel tubular arch ribs were erected by cable crane. In erection of
the steel tubular arch ribs and casting the concrete of the ribs after the enclosure of the steel
tubular arch ribs, which were suspended and their axis shapes were adjusted by cables
pulling with jacks.

Figure 16 : Yongjiang Bridge Figure 17 : Wanxian Yangtze River Bridge

Similar to Yongjiang Bridge, concrete filled steel tubular (CFST) skeleton was also used in
Wanxian Yangtze River Bridge (Fig. 17), which is a RC arch bridge with a clear span of
420m and deck width of 24m. The main arch rib is a three-cell rectangular box 7m height
and 16m wide. The stiffened skeleton is composed of a truss CFST arch and profiled bar,
the chord bars are steel tubes of φ402mm×16mm filled with C60 concrete. Wanxian
Yangtze River Bridge was completed in 1997 and it is the longest span concrete arch bridge
in the world.
With the increasing use of steel material and high labor costs in bridge construction due to
the rapid development of national economy, CFST arch bridge became a good alternative to
achieve a kind of balance between reinforced concrete arch bridges and steel arch bridges.
In addition, it has a more pleasing appearance and is easy to be erected for the light weight
of steel tubular arch ribs. The first CFST arch bridge in China, the Wanchang Bridge with a
main span of 110m, was completed in 1990. From then on, more than 200 CFST bridges
have been built or under construction 5. Table 3 lists the top ten bridges of this kind by the
main span.
The structures of CFST arch bridges vary in several aspects. For arch rib, it can be a
singular tube, dumbbell shape composted of two tubes and trusses of three to six tubes.
Depending on the deck location, the bridge can be deck arch, through arch and half-through
arch bridge. Both through arch and half-through arch configuration are most widely used in
CFST arch bridge in China. The CFST arch bridges can also be classified into lateral
bracing, no bracing, lift-basket arch bridges according to lateral connection. Additionally,
according to thrust in arch, there are thrust and no-thrust arch bridges. The latter can be
further classified into arch-girder system and rigid-frame tied arch system. The ordinary
erection methods used in CFST arch bridges are the cable stayed cantilever launching
method with cable crane method and the swing method.

Table 3 CFST arch bridges in China (span≥260m)

Service
No Bridge Name Main span (m) Type
Year
1 Wushan Yangtze Bridge 2005 460 Half-through bridge
2 Maochaojie Bridge 2005 368 Fly-bird type
3 Yajisha Bridge 2000 360 Fly-bird type
4 Nanning Yonghe Bridge 2004 349.5 Half-through bridge
5 Chunan Nanpu Bridge 2003 308 Half-through bridge
6 Fengjie Meixi River Bridge 2001 288 Deck bridge
7 No. 3 Hanjiang Bridge 2000 280 Through tied rigid frame
8 Dongguang Shuidao Bridge 2005 280 Fly-bird type
9 Sanan Yongjiang Bridge in Guangxi 1998 270 Half-through bridge
10 Yibin Rongzhou Bridge 2004 260 Half-through bridge

The swing method includes the vertical swing method and the horizontal swing method.
The Yajisha Bridge with a main span of 360m was erected by a combination of the vertical
and horizontal swing method as shown in Fig. 18. The weight of a single swing was about
13,685t, one of the heaviest weights by swing method in the world.
Wu-shan Yangtze River Bridge, located in the Reservoir of Three Gorges on the Yangtz
River, completed in March, 2005 (Fig. 19), is a half-through CFST arch bridge with a span
of 460m and a rise to span ratio of 1/3.8. Its 460m span is the record span in CFST arch
bridge at present.
The bridge deck’s width is 19m, in which 15.0m for four traffic lanes and 2×1.5m for walk
side road as well as 2×0.5m for rails. Two arch ribs are CFST trusses. The arch axis is a
catenary curve with a curve coefficient m of 1.55. The width of each rib is 4.14m, and its
height varies from 7.0m in crown to 14.0m in the spring. The distance from center to centre
of two the two ribs is 19.7m. Four chord members in each rib are Ф1220×22mm steel tubes
filled with C60 concrete. The vertical and the diagonal web members are made up of
Ф610×12mm steel tubes. The lateral bracing members of the CFST chords are
alsoФ711×16mm hollow steel tubes.

(a) Bridge view (b) Construction site

Figure 18 : Yajisha Bridge

Total of 20 lateral bracings connect the two parallel arch ribs together. Two bracings at the
intersection of deck with arch ribs are composite structures of steel tubular and steel plate
girder. The other eighteen bracings are steel tubular trusses. The bracings upper the bridge
deck are K-shaped and the ones bellow the deck are composed of multiple back-to-back
K-shaped trusses.

(a) Bridge view (b) Construction site

Figure 19 : Wu-shan Yangtze River Bridge

The pre-stressed concrete T-shaped cross beams are hanged or supported by high strength
wire hangers or spandrel CFST columns, and reinforce concrete π-shaped beams on the top
of cross beams form the deck. The split abutment for each rib is located in the rock
foundation.
The steel tubular arch was erected by cable stayed cantilever launching method. Each arch
rib was divided into 11 segments with a heaviest weight of 128t and was hoisted by cable
crane. The span of the cable crane was 576m and the height of the tower was 150.22m. The
construction began from December 2001. The steel tubular arch was closed at April 17th,
2003. The concrete was filled into the steel tube from October 29th, 2003. It was completed
in 2004.
In China, for a long period, steel products per person were very small; so few steel arch
bridges have been built, in which most of them are combined trussed (or beam) arch
bridges. Jiujiang Yantze River Bridge in Jiangxi Province is a bridge of steel truss
strengthens by arch with a main span of 216m. The bridge carries double deck for 4 lanes
highway in upper deck and double track railway in lower deck. It was completed in 1992.
On June 28, 2003, the Lu Pu Bridge was open to traffic (Fig. 20). This bridge in Shanghai
with a main span of 550m, crossing the Huangpu River, is the longest span of arch bridge in
the world.
The span arrangement of Lupu Bridge is 100m+550m+100m. The arch rise is 100m and the
rise-to-span ratio is 1/5.5. Each of the twin steel box arch ribs has a width of 5.0m and a
depth of 6m at crown and 9m at the arch spring. The arch ribs are connected with 25
straight bracings above the deck and 8 K-shaped bracings bellow the deck. Horizontal
cables are adopted to balance the horizontal thrust of the main span as it suits the
particularly soft soil foundation conditions in Shanghai. Construction of the huge dual
six-lane Lupu Bridge began in October 2000 and has cost￥2.25billion (USD＄272million)
RMB. The 550m-long main arch is made up of 27 box segments and linked with the bridge
deck by 28 pairs of hangers. Over 35,000 tons of steel has been used.
As the other type bridges, a large number of arch bridges with long spans have been built in
China since 1980 due to the rapid development of economics and material, construction
methods as well as the design theory in arch bridges. At present, China keeps all the span
records of stone, steel, reinforced concrete and concrete filled steel tubular arch bridges as
mentioned before. Many arch bridges with a long span are still under construction, for
examples, Zhijinghe Bridge in Hubei Province is a CFST deck arch bridge with a main
span of 400m; Xinguang Bridge in Guangzhou is a bridge with a central span of 428m, it is
composed of two PC triangle frames and three steel arches; and Caiyuanba Yantze River
Bridge in Chongqing is a steel arch bridge of double decks and with a main span of 420m.
 (a) Bridge view (b) Construction site
Figure 20 : Lupu Bridge in Shanghai

4. LARGE SCALE BRIDGE ENGINEERING

China is a country with a vast territory, and there are more than 1500 waterway systems
with total drainage areas covering more than 1000km2. The Yangtze River with a total
length of the main stream more than 6300km is the longest river in China and the third
longest one in the world. It originates in the Tibetan Plateau, running from the west to east
and entering to the Pacific. It is called as “Golden Waterway” with 57,000 km navigation
channel on the main stream and tributaries, 52.5% of that of China’s total. However, the
river at the same time is a natural barrier difficulty to cross for road.
The Wuhan Yantze River Bridge completed in 1957 is the first permanent bridge over it. It
is 1670m long and 22.5m wide, and carries both railway and highway traffic on nine
continuous spans of steel trusses. In 1968, the Nanjia Yangtzw River Bridge was opened to
traffic as the second one after the first one completed eleven years. It is also a double deck
steel truss bridge, consists of a total length of 6772m for railway and 4588m for highway.
Now there are more than 60 bridges have been built cross over the Yangtze River, most of
them are the typical bridges in China for their larger span, innovative structure, construction
technology etc. In the other hand, the bridge over the Yangtze River generally is a large
scale project, especially in the downstream area for the river is very width. For example, as
introduced in preamble, the Second Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge is 12.517km in total
length; the Runyang Yangtze River Bridge has a total length of 35.66km with 7.4km over
the river, which is also the first bridge over Yangtze river by both cable stayed bridge and
suspension bridge as shown in Fig. 21.
The Yellow River is the second largest river in China. It originates also from the Tibetan
Plateau in north of Yangtze River, with a total length of 5,464km, basin area795,000km2
and, finally empties itself into the Bohai sea. It is well known as sediment-laden river and
the river channel of downstream is 4-7 meters higher than the ground outside the river on
average, the maximum is up to 13 meters higher. There are about 90 bridges over this river
now. Because the Yellow river is a vagrant river, in order to ensure safety long road bank is
not admitted to be used when a road crosses it, such results many bridges over the Yellow
River with a great length, especially in the down stream.

Fig. 21 Runyang Yangtze River Bridge

Zhengzhou Second Yellow River Highway Bridge completed in 2004 is a bridge with a
total length of about 10km. It is divided into an 800 m-long main bridge and a 9035 m-long
foreshore bridge as well as two abutments. The foreshore bridge is composed of 127 and 81
spans of PC simple beam bridges with a span of 35 m and 50m PC girders, respectively as
well as 27 spans of PC slab bridges with a span of 20m. It is a key engineering project in
the national highway trunk (express way) linking the north to the south from Beijing to
Zhuhai in Guangdong Province. There are two separate bridges in the road section; each
bridge carries 4 lanes in a direction and has a net width of 19.484 m. The main bridge is
composed by 8 span of CFST tied arch bridges with a span of 100m as shown in Fig. 22 6.

Figure 22 : Zhengzhou Second Yellow River Highway Bridge

As we known, the coast area in China is the most developed area and is still developing in
the fastest speed these days. Some large scale bridges for port and for road are constructed
or under construction in this area in the last ten years, such as the connection road
engineering project of the Zhoushan Island to the mainland in Zhejian Provice with a total
length of 48km, including 23.745km of several bridges; the Hong Kong-Shenzhen Western
Corridor and Deep Bay Link project with length of 3.2km and 5.4km respectively;
Hangzhou Bay Bridge with a total length of 36km; the Donghai Bridge in Shanghai with a
length of 31km. The former three are still under construction, and the last one has been
completed. Hangzhou Bay Bridge and Donghai Bridge will be briefly introduced herein.
Donghai Bridge (Fig. 23) is a collaboration work for Yanshan Deep Water Port, linking
Shanghai with outlying Yangshan Island. The bridge carries six lanes of traffic, supported
by two separated superstructures, each one for three lanes with a clear deck width of
15.25m.
The Donghai Bridge with a total length approximately 31km consists of three parts. The
first part is 2,264m long on the land from new bank to old bank of Luchao Harbor. The
second part is a 25,322m-long bridge over the sea from new bank of Luchao Harbor to
Tortoise Island. All of the four navigational spans of the Donghai Bridge are in this part. A
cable-stayed bridge with double pylons, single plane and composite girders provides the
main navigation span for 5,000DWT ships by its 420m main span. Three prestressed
concrete continuous-beam bridges with main spans of 120m, 140m and 160m respectively,
were designed as the three auxiliary navigational spans for 1,000DWT and 500DWT ships.
Bored piles are used for these navigation bridges. The third part is a 3,160m long bridge
from Tortoise Island to Yangshan Island.
A great deal of PC continuous girders is used in this super-long bridge except those bridges
for navigation spans in part two as mentioned before. The standard span of 30m and 50m
are used on the onshore and shallow sea section, respectively; and the spans of 60m or 70m
are used in the deep see section without navigation requirements. Foundations are generally
made of pipe piles or bored piles. There are 666 PC box girders in lengths of 60-70m, each
weighs of 1,800 to 2,000t, precasted onshore and erected offshore, 140 spans in various
types cast in-site offshore by movable formwork or baskets. And for the substructure and
foundation, there are over 8,600 piles installed offshore by piling ships, over 500 bored
piles constructed by offshore platforms, 814 piers precast onshore and installed offshore.
Concrete cast for the whole bridge was well over 1 million cube meters 7.
Construction of Donghai Bridge started at June, 2002 and was completed on at May, 2005.
The total investment of Donghai Bridge for the first phase is 7.11 billion RMB (USD $890
million).

(a) Bridge view (b) Construction site

Figure 23 : Donghai Bridge

The Hangzhou Bay Bridge (Fig. 24) located in the Yangtze River delta area, links the north
and south shores of the Hangzhou Bay in the south of Shanghai. With a total length of
36km over the see bay, the bridge will cut the travel from Shanghai to Ningbo, Zhejiang
Province, from 399km to 179km, resulting a 120km short journey. When completed, the
bridge will be the longest "ocean-crossing bridge" in the World.

Figure 24 : Image view of Hangzhou Bay Bridge

The bridge carries six lanes of traffic, supported by two separated superstructures, each one
for three lanes with a clear deck width of 15.50m. It can be divided into five parts, two
navigation bridges and three approach bridges. The north navigation bridge is a
double-pylon steel-box-girder cable-stayed bridge with a span arrangement of
70m+160m+448m+160m+70m. The south navigation bridge is a single-pylon
steel-box-girder cable-stayed bridge, whose arrangement of span is 100m+160m+318m.
As Donghai Bridge, the three approach bridges in Hangzhou Bay Bridge are also PC
continuous girder. The approach bridge over sea to connect the two navigation bridges has a
total length of 11060m long and 158m with standard span of 70m. The south and north
approach bridge over deep water and sallow water has total length of 6720m and 490m
respectively with also standard span of 70m. The south and north side onshore bridge has
total length of 3250m and 2560m respectively with a various spans of 30m, 50m, 60 and
80m. The bridge in the south beach is 10100m long, consists of 202 spans with a standard
span of 50m. For these bridges onshore as well as on north beach, PC girders cast in situ
with spans of 30m to 80m are adopted.
Hangzhou Bay Bridge located in a very complicated sea environment. Qiantang tides in this
place is one of the three biggest tides on the world, which can create huge, deafening waves,
reaching as high as 7.5 m and moving at speeds of 24 to 29 km an hour. Moreover,
serious effect of typhoons and the difficult content of the sea soil also make the
construction difficulty. The approach continues girders with standard span of 70m or 50m
are erected by the simply supported-to-continuous beam method. There are 540 and 404
pieces of PC girder with a standard span of 70m and 50m, respectively. These great deal
girders are fabricated in the factory, moved to the site by floating crane and erected.
A piece of PC girder with a length of 70m has a weight of about 2,200t. Special cranes of a
capacity to hoist it to a height of 52m are designed and used in this bridge as shown in Fig.
25. In order to speed up the construction and guarantee the quality, many research works
have been carried out, such as prefabrication equipments, steel formwork and steel skeleton
for box-girder segment, proportional ratio for marine durable concrete, casting technique,
transportation of heavy box-girder, precisely position adjusting of box-girder on the pier
and so on.

(a) Erection of girder (b) Piers

Figure 25 : Construction site of Hangzhou Bay Bridge
Construction of the super large scale bridge was started in 2004 and scheduled to be
completed in 2008 8. The estimated investment is about 11.78 billion RMB.

REFERENCE

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[2] Haifan Xiang. 2003. Major Bridges in China, China Communications Press, Beijing,
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[3] Shizhong Zhou. 2003. State-of-the art of Suspension Bridges in China, Bridge
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[4] Zhuanghong Lou, Zhangyu Yang, Cable Stayed Bridges in China, Proceedings of
2001 National Bridge Conference of China Highway Society, China Communications
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[5] Baochun Chen. 2005. State-of-the-art of the development of arch bridges in China，
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[6] Wei-zhong Zhang, Bao-chun Chen, Wen-jin Huang. 2004. Design of the Second
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[7] Rong Huang. 2004. Dong Hai Bridge-Design and Construction, Metropolitan Habitats
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