Despite a contract duration of nearly five years, the project team delivered this two-way, four-lane expressway that spans 151 km, or 93 miles, with a 25.5-m-wide roadbed from Rongjiang Town to Lijiang City in China, six months ahead of schedule. Factors complicating the effort included the remote nature of the project as well as its location in the Xianshuihe Fault Zone, which meant frequent seismic activity and complex and, at times, undesirable geological structures. Given the project’s location in high altitude areas and its passage through portions of the country with high ethnic minority populations, communication and coordination also provided challenging.
A critical portion of the project is the Jinan Jinshajiang Bridge, a single-span, double-hinged plate truss combined suspension bridge located over a fast-flowing river and complex regional geological conditions, which made choosing its final location difficult. The project team developed intelligent cable lifting equipment and control technology for the 1,500-m span and 220-ton class suspension bridge. The superstructure is comprised of six 41-m steel plate composite beams, a 1,386-m single-span double-hinged plate truss combined suspension bridge and a 40-m steel plate composite beam.