The longest bridge on the Fuzhou-Xiamen high-speed railway under construction in east China's Fujian Province completed a swivel on Thursday morning, marking the rotation of continuous beams with the longest span and heaviest tonnage of their kind in the country.

The Xixi super bridge on the high speed railway crosses over the Hangzhou-Shenzhen rail line, one of the busiest rail trunk lines in China. In order not to affect its transportation, the super bridge has followed a plan to build its piers first before the continuous beams between its No. 68 and No. 69 piers are turned.

The Fuzhou-Xiamen high-speed railway is a key project of the Belt and Road Initiative and China's first cross-sea high-speed railway.

The continuous beams to be swiveled are composed of two bridge bodies, each mearing 168 meters long and weighing 19,000 tonnes. The two bodies began swiveling in synchronization at 11:35 p.m. Wednesday. The continuous beams flanking the Hangzhou-Shenzhen railway rotated clockwise slowly at a speed of one degree per minute.

"The most challenging point is the control of swivel system and precision – one being the precision control of spherical joint, the other being the control of slide way and high-rise building," said Liang Shuihe, person in charge of the Xixi super bridge project of the China Railway Fourth Engineering Bureau.

Through an intelligent real-time monitoring system, the builders monitored and adjusted the rotation speed in real time, which made the swivel safer.

"We programmed the corresponding parameters in advance and compiled a program to match the ball joint traction system of our swivel. The traction force would be embodied in the process of rotation," said Liang.

The Fuzhou-Xiamen railway is one of the busiest rail lines in China, with a train passing by every five minutes on average. The swivel minimized the impact on the railway transportation, as the whole process took only 113 minutes when the rotation completed at 1:28 a.m. Thursday.

"The successful rotation has laid a solid foundation for the smooth completion of the Xixi super bridge girder channel and for the Fuzhou-Xiamen high speed railway to go into operation in 2022," said Liang.

The Fuzhou-Xiamen high speed railway starts from Fuzhou in the north and passes through Putian and Quanzhou cities to end in Xiamen and Zhangzhou cities in the south, with a total length of 277.42 kilometers and a designed speed of 350 km/h. After it is put into operation, travel time from Fuzhou to Xiamen will be reduced to an hour, and a circle of half-an-hour traffic will take shape between Xiamen, Zhangzhou and Quanzhou.

Source: CCTV Plus

(Cover image via CFP)