Record-breaking Chinese bridge clears hurdle to faster transport in border province

The structure, which passed a load test on Monday, is part of a belt and road project to improve connections with Southeast Asia
World’s longest single-tower suspension bridge cuts travel time between the southwestern cities of Yuxi and Chuxiong from 1½ hours to just 2 minutes

Science

Stephen Chenin Beijing

Published: 7:44pm, 18 Jul 2022

Why you can trust SCMP

A record-breaking bridge in southwest China passed a demanding load test on Monday, clearing the way for faster travel along a belt and road corridor that will facilitate links to Southeast Asia, according to state media reports.

In an eight-day test that began on July 11, trucks carrying up to 1,280 tonnes (1,411 tons) of cargo drove back and forth non-stop over the Luzhijiang Bridge in the southwestern province of Yunnan, according to Science and Technology Daily, the newspaper of the Ministry of Science and Technology.

The 800-metre-long (2,625 feet) bridge, which holds the record for the world’s longest single-tower suspension bridge, is expected to cut travel time between the cities of Yuxi and Chuxiong from 1½ hours to just two minutes.

The Luzhijiang Bridge in Yunnan province is the world’s longest single-tower suspension bridge. Photo: Weibo

The area around Yuxi and Chuxiong includes some of China’s least developed counties near the border with Southeast Asia. Yuxi is known for tobacco production, while Chuxiong has one of the world’s largest deposits of dinosaur fossils.

The Chinese government built the Luzhijiang Bridge as part of a new 200km (124 miles) expressway through Yunnan to improve connections with countries including Myanmar, Vietnam and Laos.

The expressway is an infrastructure project under the Belt and Road Initiative, China’s plan to promote regional links and economic integration with more than 140 countries.

G7’s belt and road alternative could force China to ‘match global standards’

The bridge will “greatly improve the infrastructure of the counties and towns on both sides of the bridge, promote transport and economic exchanges in the surrounding areas, improve the investment environment, and open up a fast channel for the people along the line to increase their income and become rich”, said the Science and Technology Daily report.

The bridge’s gravity-defying design features just one support tower and spans a deep valley with cliffs rising more than 300 metres above ground.

The cliffs are prone to landslides and other geological hazards, according to engineers with the project.

After evaluating several proposals, the project team chose the most challenging one, with a single span reaching 780 metres.

When construction started in 2019, the engineers were given a three-year deadline. Despite the pandemic and repeated lockdowns, they finished the project in time with the help of robots, according to the engineers.

01:46

World’s longest glass-bottomed bridge in Vietnam aims to take country’s tourism to new heights

Each of the super-long steel cables had to be secured deep inside the mountain with an anchor. To house the giant anchor, the engineers drilled a tunnel over 100 metres long into the cliff.

Drilling these tunnels in such a challenging landscape typically requires lots of manpower and years of effort.

But the tunnelling time was reduced to around four months thanks to smart machines that could complete the process almost entirely without humans, said the project team with the China Railway Major Bridge Engineering Group in a paper published in the domestic journal World Bridge in March.

These deep tunnels also allow the suspension cables to ascend from the mountain at an angle of 54 degrees, providing extra strength and support to the bridge.

The previous record holder for longest single-tower suspension bridge, the Jinshajiang Hutiaoxia Bridge on the Beijing-Tibet Expressway in western China, spans 766 metres.