Construction of the Longest Highway | Mega Projects | FD Engineering

sorry this is a miracle in the history of road building China has quintupled the length of its highways over the past 30 years building the largest Highway Network in the world the total length of the country's Railways now exceeds 120 000 kilometers starting from scratch twenty thousand kilometers of high-speed Railway have been built in just eight years this accounts for 60 percent of the world's total High-Speed Rail lines this place has the greatest number and the most complex assortment of tunnels and bridges in the world more than twenty thousand tunnels and more than a million Bridges have turned natural chasms into thoroughfares 230 airports and more than three and a half million flights make up the second largest air Network in the world along China's 32 000 kilometer long coastline seven ports are among the top ten in the world the widespread and convenient Transportation Network keeps China energized and full of Vitality keeping it all going seems to be an impossible task but the Chinese people have made it happen year after year [Applause] the southern Tai hung mountains are where the Indian and Eurasian plates collide on its steep Cliff face there's a road of Hope Wonderland of the taihang mountains is nestled Shi yako a village of less than 300 people it was once isolated from the outside world foreign villagers decided to work together to Chisel a road out of the cliff at that time hundreds of millions of Chinese people shared their dream they wanted to communicate with the outside world and live a better life for them this was the key to changing their destiny this is a bird's eye view of China each of the 660 thousand dots represents the lowest administrative level in the country the Chinese government's ambition is to connect these Villages even the remotest ones with highways [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] the first Expressway opened in China back in 1988 over the following three decades the total length of its expressways soared to more than 120 000 kilometers knocking the U.S and Canada into second and third place [Music] now China's Expressway network has taken shape the next challenge for engineers is to create access roads along the most difficult sections of Highway look up wanjo is a city of immigrants it has a population of eight hundred thousand the local people maintain a close connection with water it's located in the hinterland of the Three Gorges the traffic here isn't as convenient as in the eastern part of China the waterborne traffic here fails to satisfy local needs good news is this situation is about to change River Bridge is a vital part of the expressway between wanjo in Chongqing and Lee Chuan in who Bay it connects this mountainous area to the highway Network built over the river this suspension bridge has a main span of 1050 meters Piers weren't needed in its construction which helped protect the fragile environment in and around the Three Gorges Reservoir the bridge weighs 20 000 tons which is equivalent to the weight of three Eiffel Towers the two main cables are of vital importance to suspend this gigantic structure in the air they cannot be replaced during the Bridge's 100-year lifespan setting up of the first main cable is crucial to the safety of the entire Bridge only catwalk about 100 meters above the ground workers are installing the last gate post this will serve as the support point for hauling up the cable this platform of wire and wood hanging in the air is the only platform the workers will use in the splay chamber of the tunnel type Anchorage on the Southern Bank of the river workers are busy securing the anchor system the cables will be tightly fixed to the anchors to ensure the safety of the bridge everything is ready um foreign the machine is dragging the heavy anchor head and the cable which is causing a violent wobble the workers have to adjust the winch speed so that the cable Falls squarely on the pulley at the same time the speed of the winches shouldn't be too high as to avoid breaking the hauling cable a gale blowing over the river adds to the difficulty of the job workers are watching the red marker cable if it twists it means the main Cable's bearing capacity will suffer a massive drop as the anchor is dragged by the winch its head passes through two Bridge Towers crosses the 1000 meter wide river and is fixed to the anchor on the opposite Bank then the workers dragged 215 cables and bind them into two main cables using a cable compression engine these two main cables will carry the weight of the entire Bridge this project is extremely challenging because of the mountains and the elevation situated across 94 kilometers there are 1407 Pier columns the highest being as tall as a 40-story building the western part of China has a complex terrain is full of lofty mountains and deep Canyons civil engineers and surveyors have to look for suitable Highway routes near rivers and mountains winding mountain roads are inefficient and harmful to the local environment a 180 degree turn is a nightmare for all drivers to prevent this Chinese Engineers have perfected the technique of straightening roads by Boring through mountains and Building Bridges across Rivers foreign Expressway begins at the edge of the Sichuan Basin and crosses the hung Duan mountains which are more than three thousand meters high in the past it took 10 hours to complete this 300 kilometer Journey [Applause] now the engineers have decided to cut through the mountains then a problem appears um [Music] an altitude difference of 500 meters over four kilometers means an average incline of nine percent it's too dangerous for cargo trucks to use the surveyors have to work out a way to reduce the angle by 70 percent connected by cutting Journeys in half the yashi expressway has become a major transport route in Southwest China in less than three decades the expressway system has developed rapidly in China 29 arteries crisscross each other with their central point being Beijing with a large number of Highways connecting different regions a transportation Network connecting towns each with a population of more than 200 000 has been created these days urban traffic is facing new challenges [Music] in the 1980s China was known to the world as the kingdom of bicycles half the people in the country owned a bicycle at that time no one knew China would undergo such dramatic changes every day Liu boar sets out from his office for construction sites in different parts of Beijing as the capital of China Beijing has 21 million people and 5.6 million cars if these cars were parked in one place they would occupy the entire central part of Beijing to make it more convenient for people to get around six ring roads 7 000 kilometers of City roads 1200 bus lines and 8 and 18 Subways make up beijing's public transport Network so the roads are still overwhelmed which means that road maintenance is a constant issue Bridge is a major overpass in Beijing during rush hour 13 000 Vehicles pass over it every hour constantly overloaded with traffic the Bridge's base needs to be retrofitted if the work is done in a conventional way the bridge would have to be closed for two months which would be a massive inconvenience to people the engineers need to replace the bridge girder in an extremely short period of time they come up with an ingenious plan at 11 PM on November 13 2015 the refurbishment a San Joanne Bridge begins in less than six hours the 1 600 ton Bridge girder is dismantled 24 hours later it has been completely refurbished two girder Transporters move forward at a speed of one meter per minute they move a total distance of 60 meters 70 minutes later the new girder is in place after pouring concrete and laying asphalt traffic is back to normal at 6 pm on the 15th behind this 43 hours was 150 days of meticulous preparation when people head to work the following Monday they can't even tell the bridge has been retrofitted [Music] with the rapid development of the city the road network is becoming increasingly complex due to the scarcity of land 31 cities in China have turned to an underground solution but for cities with high groundwater the situation is even more difficult beside the Yangtze River a five-story giant weighing 575 tons is waiting to be hoisted uhan is a traffic Hub in central China the Yangtze and the Han River meet here but now it's wide expansive water has become a bottleneck for the city's traffic foreign to ease the traffic the city needs another 19 River bridges but this will bring huge trouble to shipping [Music] the designers decide to look for a new solution to maximize traffic capacity Highway Railway Dual Purpose River Crossing tunnel is included in their plan the tunnel has a diameter of 15.2 meters the upper level is a two-way six-lane Highway while the lower level is a Subterranean Railway a boring machine will be used to dig the tunnel now the workers are trying to Hoist the round cutter head and then lower it down the 44 meter deep shaft this is an extremely heavy piece of equipment workers are toiling hard in the working shaft the main Drive the most sophisticated and expensive part of the machine has been installed the workers are setting up supports to help to join the cutter head and propulsion system together after four hours of preparation hoisting of the cutter head begins crawler cranes take care of this formidable task they will maneuver the cutter head horizontally and then turn it over so it stands upright this seems to be an easy task but the workers must be careful at every step each phase can take several hours this Crane's lifting capacity is 750 tons it lowers the giant cutter head slowly into the shaft by 10 pm it's finally in position the cutter head and the propulsion system have been joined together successfully nowadays Shield bearing tunnel boring machines are widely used by Chinese Engineers but they have a greater ambition this Factory in the eastern part of China has been in operation for just five years its workers are cleaning two Rusty main drives they belong to two ultra-large 15 meter in diameter tunnel boring machines they were produced aboard the Nanjing Way San Luis shield tunnel tunnel boring machines also known as TBM or moles are technically Advanced pieces of equipment that require highly specialized components China wants lag behind in this field in 1958 in the southwestern region of China Chinese Engineers began to build a railway from Chengdu to kunmin this was the first time mechanized construction had been used in China nearly 90 years after Western countries had been industrialized from that moment forward the Chinese began pursuing their dream of manufacturing high quality Equipment [Music] half a century later China's manufacturing capability has drawn Global attention the technology for the large diameter tunnel boring machine was monopolized by several manufacturers as the chief engineer of the Nanjing Way San Luis shield tunnel project Zhang boy young clearly remembers the embarrassing situation they faced [Music] women they formed a team and set up a new Factory and this is how the Chinese began to develop their own tunnel boring machines in two years the actual cost of the machine including the research and development expenditure was kept below 500 million Yuan it's 130 meters long and weighs around 4 800 tons after tunneling non-stop the more than 1 000 days in night on July 2nd 2015 it emerged from the southern branch of the Way San Luis shield tunnel all the hard work and effort had paid off this kind of story can be found in every corner of China Transportation infrastructure promotes the development of a Nation as the economy flourishes even better roads are needed the results caused by this kind of relationship often reach far beyond people's expectations many cities are facing a new problem of traffic expansion 1 500 kilometers to the South the Pearl River is the second largest river system in China its Delta region has the most economically developed City cluster in China foreign it's also a core area of foreign trade a variety of Industries have gathered here making it the manufacturing center of the world because of this the area is also home to the most extensive Expressway Network in China but this is far from enough the Hooman bridge is the only East-West passage linking the banks of the Pearl River it supports rapid Economic Development on both sides of the river it was open to traffic 20 years ago now it's overwhelmed with traffic the idea of building another Bridge has been considered for almost 10 years now it's imperative the second who man bridge will cross the Pearl River Estuary it consists of two super large suspension bridges this is a challenge that has never been seen before its main Bridge Tower is as high as 260 meters equivalent to the height of a 90-story building upon completion it will be the highest suspension bridge Tower in China it also requires a 10 kilometer Long Bridge Approach and two complicated interchange overpasses which greatly increases its complexity the builders are under immense pressure to complete this project safely and quickly the engineers will complete the eight giant Bridge Towers using hydraulic self-climbing formwork okay it enables the construction platform fixed to the top of the tower to rise as the building takes shape four hours later the climbing phase has been completed on the central island connecting the two main spans the prefabricating of segmental beams is underway 3500 trusses and 50 types of segmented beams are being produced and assembled here the largest segmental beam weighs the equivalent of 120 cars on average five production lines can produce seven trusses per day the production is standardized to make sure all the work is completed within three years though the time limit for this project is five years all the work is planned in advance down to the hour Engineers are trying their best to get this Bridge completed and open to traffic as soon as possible the massive Highway Network connects the entire country currently China has the second largest number of vehicles in the world compared to statistics from 1990 the number has increased 310 times this trend has some inherent problems foreign ergy consumption traffic jams smog China has decided to seek another way to transport both people and cargo more effectively and on an even larger scale by using railways [Music] 120 000 kilometer long Railway network has been built with seven percent of the world's operational Railway length China already accounts for 25 of the world's Railway transport volume Railways have obvious advantages in terms of the transportation of bulk cargo 100 kilometers to the north of Beijing is a beautiful s-shaped curve it's a Heavy Haul Railway that's been in operation for 23 years every day trains wind their way through this area the starting point of these trains is China's coal city.com coal is still the most important source of energy in China in spite of changes in China's energy structure coal still accounts for 66 percent of its energy consumption the 653 kilometer long datong to Chin Hong Dao Railway transports a quarter of the total coal volume carried by China's Railways like a main artery it pumps blood to the eastern part of the country foreign to increase the transport volume of a railway it's necessary to maximize the transport capacity of each train to Ching Huang Dao Railway heavy load trains with a carrying capacity of 20 000 tons are quite common the coal transported by trade requires four thousand trucks each with a load capacity of 5 tons heavy load trains take call to Ching Hong Dao in a steady stream the Nicole is shipped to other parts of China in fact China has a bigger plan to build a north-south heavy Hall Railway that is three times the length of the dot tongue to chinhuang Dao Railway this presents a new set of challenges on the lowest Plateau the wheat crop is ready for Harvest has spent his entire life on the slopes of the Zhong tiao mountains [Music] this long narrow mountain range once blocked Chen's route it was an obstacle for the building of the Mong Hua Railway stretching from Western inner Mongolia to Central China the railway will cut through the mountain via an 18.5 kilometer long tunnel the first problem is the complex geological conditions [Applause] the water in the Sandstone streams down the stone crevices if this problem isn't handled properly it'll cause water and sand in rushes which will soon bury half of the tunnel Engineers drill into the gravel on the work phase then they pour concrete grout into the holes after the concrete grout solidifies they set off explosives and the tunneling can begin thank you the newly finished tunnel has to be Consolidated as soon as possible to ensure its structural integrity for a Heavy Haul Railway the bottom of the tunnel needs to have a higher bearing capacity its foundation has to be as thick as one meter Engineers plan to reinforce the arch wall and bottom of the tunnel this have a 24 meter long self-propelled crawler Trestle makes their plan possible while the tunneling is underway at the work phase Vehicles can travel on The Trestle at the same time the workers down below can consolidate the bottom of the tunnel with concrete an enclosed circular tunnel can be completed in a short time [Music] the tunnel workers do their job in muddy Darkness all day long thanks to their efforts China now has a road Network radiating out in all directions [Music] foreign the transportation of bulk cargo is more complicated cargo from different places is transported to different destinations this relies on a marshalling system is located in central China because of its special location it has more Rail lines than any other City many Railways converge here making it the biggest transfer station for cargo in the country North railway station is the largest marshaling station in China covering an area of 5.3 square kilometers its marshalling yard has 228 lines this train from Shenyang in Northeast China is carrying cargo Bound for Guangzhou Xi'an and nanyang its wagons are being separated onto different tracks then they will be reassembled with wagons that are traveling to the same place period this marshalling station handles more than thirty thousand rail cars per day how are they able to be so efficient is a coupler a jungjo North railway station watching Netflix train is driven to the hump backwards shows how many rail cars need to be disconnected unlocks the coupling hook the disconnected carriages are pulled to the marshalling yard by gravity their fully automatic braking system enables the carriages to move at a certain speed and stop in the wagon parking area of the yard the switch setting as well as arrangement of tracks and signals is all coordinated from the master control room foreign 40 kilometers away there's a large construction site near the airport this place will be transformed into a science and Eco Park as well as a high-end business district director ding Jian Gore has to speed up the construction of the support facilities dozens of high-tech Enterprises are waiting to establish themselves in jeongzhou yeah so this originally underdeveloped city is quietly changing in 2014 it became the largest production base for smartphone Manufacturing in the world these days an increasing number of high-end equipment electronic Enterprises have built their bases here foreign [Music] hub for Railway transportation and the expressway Network it also handles an increasing amount of air cargo if an international flight lands here it's very convenient for its cargo to be transported to all corners of China an increasingly large number of Enterprises have found this advantageous jungjo has seen its air Logistics capacity expands for the last two years in fact China's need for passenger transport is even larger than its cargo requirements every day more than 9 000 flights take off or land at 230 airports in China it has the second largest air Network in the world every year China purchases more than 300 aircrafts to meet the needs of an ever-increasing number of passengers China has begun producing its own wide-body Jets but even this can't fully satiate domestic demand China has the largest population in the world its migrant population is also the largest the travel season during the Chinese New Year is known as the largest annual human migration one month alone Witnesses more than 3 billion trips which is equal to transporting half of the world's population [Music] China needed to find a way to deal with such massive passenger volume [Music] [Music] Jen June is constantly on business trips the high-speed Railway is his first choice except in an emergency when he'll fly again Chinese people love traveling by High-Speed Rail they've chosen it because it can transport large numbers of passengers quickly It's relatively energy efficient it's energy consumption per 100 kilometers is 1 12 of an airplane's [Music] China plans to build a large high-speed Railway Network to connect its cities with trains running at speeds of over 300 kilometers per hour thus forming a giant economic Circle the Beijing to Shanghai high-speed Railway is the most important part of this plan built at a cost of 220.9 billion yuan it was open in 2011. it connects Beijing and Shanghai the two largest cities in China and covers nearly a quarter of China's population among the cities it passes through are 14 with populations of several million people it connects the circum board High sea region and the Yangtze River delta area at the center of the China Railway ticketing and reservation system of the Chinese Academy of Railway Sciences Gian Chung is analyzing the data of the Beijing to Shanghai high-speed railways from the Beijing to Shanghai high-speed Railway the interval between trains is five minutes which is shorter than on most city bus routes after being in operation for five years it is transported 490 million passengers the areas along it have become more closely connected and more dynamic the high-speed train has become the Chinese people's first choice for medium and long distance trips it has boosted communication links between different areas large cities play an important role in promoting the economic development of these areas every day more than 350 crh 380 trains travel along this Railway at speeds of 300 kilometers per hour this 1 318 kilometer long journey takes only about four hours numerous problems have to be overcome to maintain its efficiency the trains need to cross the Yangtze River the darshan Guan Yangtze River Bridge was built it's the first six-lane Bridge with such a large load capacity in the world the 164.5 kilometer long Dan young gunshan grandbridge is the longest bridge in the world crosses Young Chung Lake and over 180 roads it is completely solved the problems of foundation settlement that have plagued other Bridges huge projects close cooperation between technicians is also important in maintaining the high efficiency of this Railway foreign places there is some unimpressive yet vital work being done Nanjing South Railway Station is packed with passengers during the day but late at night the trains have stopped and the passengers have gone this is when Wong Wei and his colleagues start their work um [Music] high speed switch is an important node that restricts the speed of the trains unlike cars and ships trains don't have a steering wheel the switch makes track shifting possible the faster a train is going the larger its turning radius so a longer switch is needed to keep the Train on the track to avoid derailment and to allow the train to switch tracks at a speed of several hundred kilometers an hour dozens of switching machines must operate in tandem Wong Way's job is to make sure all the switches are safe the rail is intact all the joints are closely connected and all the contacts of the switching machines are in good condition every aspect of the high-speed Railway Network calls for a great attention to detail details like this have made it possible for China's high-speed Railway Network to develop rapidly over the past 12 years with a total length of 20 000 kilometers it has become the largest high-speed Railway Network in the world more importantly high-speed trains have become a popular means of transportation in China they've become the preferred way of travel for an increasing number of people thanks to the convenience of high-speed trains gen June can make it for the birth of his child but this is not the end of China's Pursuit for convenient transportation after three decades of Rapid development the infrastructure for the country's vast Road network has almost been completed [Music] foreign [Music] the train reaches hongchao station in Shanghai an integrated Transportation Hub it has every means of transportation available except for water transport it's easy to transfer to the airport from here every day people can fly to over 91 domestic and international destinations from this Airport from here high-speed trains can take passengers to China Southwestern provinces long distance buses shuttle between here and the surrounding areas the urban Railway Network passengers can reach downtown Shanghai in about 20 minutes high efficiency convenience and low energy consumption coupled with the balanced development of different means of transportation is the future of China's transport system from roads chiseled out of the Cliff face the bridges across the Yangtze River from heavy Hall railways to high-speed railways in the past three decades civil engineers have extended the road Network to almost all the villages in China they've also built the largest Expressway and high-speed Railway Network in the world these roads have made traveling easier and more convenient and provided a strong boost to the country's economic development even so there's still a lot more to come [Music]

Channel: Free Documentary - Engineering

Views: 3,502

Keywords: free documentary, free documentary engineering, engineering, engineering documentary, tech, tech documentary, constructions, constructions documentary, technology documentary, massive builds, biggest construction projects, biggest megaprojects, largest construction projects in the world, mega construction, mega project, mega projects, megaprojects in the world, transportation engineering

Id: WB5u-noMe_M

Length: 47min 59sec (2879 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 14 2023