Shuangbao Bridge, the world’s largest double arch bridge, China (+VIDEO)

The Yuxiang dual carriageway is an “arterial road” connecting Chongqing in central China, with Hunan province a little further south. Started in 2020, it is expected to be completed in 2025. With an investment of some €8.352 billion, the dual carriageway stretches 285 km. As of last December, according to the Lai Times, “125 bridges, accounting for 90%, and 58 tunnels, accounting for 94%” had been completed. Well, one of these bridges, the so-called Shuangbao Grand Bridge, has become a milestone in the construction of this type of infrastructure.

Indeed, with a length of 1,620 m, a width of 16 m, 6 lanes in both directions and a diameter of each of its spans of 405 m, it is the world’s largest double-arch bridge. As if that were not enough, Liu Miao, the project manager of the No. 2 Public Transport Bureau of the China Communications Construction Company, adds that “the world’s first cable crane span of independent cranes” (900 m span and 167 m height) was used during its construction, which achieved “the world’s first cable lifting weight of the same structure”. Each of the “ribs” forming the concrete-filled tubular steel structure weighs up to 200.8 tonnes.

“The main arch of the Shuangbao Bridge on the Chongqing-Xiang dual carriageway is closed”, grandiloquent newspaper headlines announced when, on the morning of 17th March 2023, its arches were “successfully” completed. These reports referred to the placement of the last section of the tubular structure supporting the bridge. As Miao explained, the construction of the bridge, located in a W-shaped canyon in a “karst geography”, is difficult. It required the use of advanced technologies never before employed in China.

For example, since the cable hoist could only lift one segment of the bridge arches at a time, an intelligent active balance control system was adopted to eliminate the imbalance of forces. In addition, a digital pre-assembly technology was applied, also for the first time in China, based on 3D laser scanning and the creation of point clouds on the segments and ribs of the arches, therefore saving time in the final assembly.

According to statements by officials of the Chongqing Municipal Bureau of Transportation reported by People’s Daily Online, once completed, the Yuxiang dual carriageway “will greatly relieve traffic pressure on the existing motorway, further improve the logistics and passenger transport network in southeast Chongqing, and provide supporting infrastructure for the development of local ecological agriculture, tourism and other ecological industries”. Once the motorway is opened, citizens will save between 40 minutes and 1 hour, according to different sources, on the journey from the central city of Chongqing to Youyang and Xiushan.

To see how impressive the bridge construction is, we recommend you watch this VIDEO.