All seven main towers of the Hangzhou Bay Cross-sea Railway Bridge to the Sujia-Ningbo High-speed Railway have been capped

China News Service, Jiaxing, Zhejiang, September 3 (Xi Jinyan) — On September 3, the three main towers (No. 81, No. 82, and No. 83) of the central navigation channel bridge of the Nantong-Suzhou-Jiaxing-Ningbo (Tongsujiayong) High-Speed Railway’s Hangzhou Bay Cross-Sea Railway Bridge were capped. With this, all seven main towers of the bridge’s northern, central, and southern navigation channel bridges have been completed, and the construction of the navigation channel bridges will fully transition to the upper structure construction phase, including steel girders, stay cables, and deck systems.

The Tongsujiayong High-Speed Railway connects Nantong and Suzhou in Jiangsu Province with Jiaxing and Ningbo in Zhejiang Province. It is an important component of China's "eight vertical and eight horizontal" high-speed railway network along the coastal corridor. The newly built line has a total length of about 301 kilometers and a designed speed of 350 kilometers per hour. It is controlled and invested by the Zhejiang Communications Investment Group and constructed and managed by the Shanghai China Railway Construction and Management Company. The Hangzhou Bay Cross-Sea Railway Bridge has a total length of 29.2 kilometers, serving as a key control project for the entire Tongsujiayong High-Speed Railway and currently the world's longest cross-sea high-speed railway bridge under construction.

On September 3, the Hangzhou Bay Cross-Sea Railway Bridge under construction. (Drone photo by Xu Wang)

The central navigation channel bridge, whose main towers were capped this time, has a total length of 1,430.8 meters and is currently the world's largest-span ballastless track three-tower cable-stayed bridge. Among them, the side towers No. 81 and No. 83 are 198.5 meters high, and the central tower No. 82 is 202 meters high.

Hangzhou Bay is one of the three major strong-tide bays in the world, with a maximum tidal range close to 9 meters, an average of about 180 days of strong winds of magnitude 6 or above per year, and characteristics such as strong tides and rapid currents, severe seabed scour and siltation, high salt spray and high humidity, and the distribution of shallow gas. The central navigation channel bridge of the Hangzhou Bay Cross-Sea Railway Bridge is constructed by China Railway Major Bridge Engineering Group Co., Ltd. To achieve the smooth capping of the three main towers, the project overcame management challenges such as multi-tower simultaneous construction organization in complex sea areas and the guaranteed supply of offshore materials.

Upon completion,