Next Level Bridge Construction | Mega Projects | FD Engineering

foreign T in particular has accelerated China's development over the last 30 years technological innovation in the manufacture of large machines and Equipment have enabled civil engineers to challenge natural barriers and overcome a variety of difficulties 750 000 Bridges now linked to cities and Villages of China since numerous logistical difficulties have been overcome people can travel with greater ease and speed than ever before from the north to the South let's explore how China's civil engineers are conquering these natural barriers to build the Magnificent bridges that are helping change people's lives August is a beautiful time of year in guajo province foreign [Music] ER today he's going to launch himself from a bridge the Ching shui River Bridge was completed a mere eight months ago it's the most beautiful suspension bridge in guajo Province it crosses the 1400 meter wide fault Zone and is over 400 meters from the bottom of the valley it's a hot spot for extreme sports enthusiasts guajo is a little smaller than the UK in size and has a population of 35 million the biggest obstacle to building a road here is the U-shaped valley foreign attracts visitors from all over the world ten years ago if they wanted to cross the valley they had to use poor quality roads and dirt paths they had to First climb down then cross the water using a small bridge at the bottom and then climb back up the other side guajo sits in a plateau region and the terrain here once made life very difficult and inefficient as opposed to residents of Eastern China upgrades in Bridge technology have accelerated Expressway Construction in the western part of China and guay Joe May soon welcome a new era of Rapid development [Music] Jung's jump helps guay Joe attract the world's attention [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] bridges are important in modern society they shorten traveling time and speed up changes in society their contributions are also important in other ways [Music] 60 years ago China entered a new era the government decided to shift from an agrarian-based economy to an industrial one to facilitate this change different areas abandoned a mode of self-sufficiency for cross-regional cooperation however it's not easy to achieve such Sudden Change in a country of 9.6 million square kilometers Z is the largest river in China bisecting the center of the country it's a natural barrier between North and South although its water irrigates and nourishes the 400 million people who live along it it increases the difficulty of transporting Commodities between the South and the North its widest section is five kilometers across in the past nobody had managed to build a bridge across the river which left ferries as the only choice when it came to transportation is 85 years old he witnessed how a bridge could usher in profound change thank you [Music] at that time it took two hours to cross the river even when it was less than two kilometers across on top of that the fairy often had to cease operations because of inclement weather the river was seriously hindering China's development a bridge across the river was an imperative in 1957 the first Yangtze River Bridge was built at Wuhan with the help of Soviet experts later in 1968 the Chinese built the first Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge yes after it was built people no longer had to cross by ferry with an investment of 280 million U.N and eight years of hard work by hundreds of thousands of workers it was truly the largest Mega project ever attempted in China at the time over the following half century 162 Bridges have been built over the Yangtze River shouldering some 18 billion trips a year they have helped to connect the North and South economically the 162 Bridges form a highly efficient Transportation Network and have enhanced the rapid development of the Yangtze River economic belt the 163rd bridge is now being built pyang sugang Yangtze River Bridge will be a double decker suspension bridge with the largest Span in the world the biggest difficulty when building a bridge like this Remains the Same as it did 60 years ago which is placing piers on the riverbed after thousands of years of sedimentation there is barely any hard riverbed in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River the engineers use steel open caissons to build the beers the factory 10 kilometers away a 77.2 meter long 40 meter wide and 23 meter tall steel open case sign weighing 6 200 tons has just been finished the workers use airbags to transport the caisson to the river and use four tug boats to tow it to the construction site then the case sign is positioned on the riverbed and built upon until the structure reaches a height of 50 meters on its own the caisson isn't heavy enough so the engineers Place 18 silt suction machines into the river they work non-stop to suck the mud and sand from below the caisson so it can sink down further the workers must be very careful not to let the case on deviate from its original position Precision is key after 168 days of hard work the steel open caisson is about to reach its scheduled operational depth next the 240 meter pylon will be erected here River Bridge will soon break the record for a suspension bridge in China with its 1 700 meter span China took only 18 years to develop its Bridge Building Technology from a 400 meter span across the river to a 1 650 meter span across the sea nowadays there are over 20 thousand meter plus span bridges in China Chinese Engineers continued to make breakthroughs in Bridge Building Technology dong Ting lake is the second largest lake in China the Hangzhou Ray Lee Expressway links to eastern and western parts of China and must cross this Lake a suspension bridge is the key the second dong Ting Lake bridge is 1480 meters long it has two anchorages weighing more than 630 thousand tons two main pylons which are more than 200 meters high two main cables more than 2 600 meters long and a steel truss archdeck weighing more than 43 000 tons it's the fifth longest suspension bridge in China the anchorages and Main pylons are all in place the engineers are now focusing on the most important step setting up the main cables the main cables are the key component of suspension bridges they have to carry the 40 000 ton deck and last for at least a hundred years foreign cable of this thousand meter suspension bridge after we made to the strictest of quality and specifications the five millimeter diameter steel wires are produced in a factory 760 kilometers away twenty thousand tons of steel wire rods have just arrived the workers have to be very careful during the next phase of the operation um the tensile strength of the rebar is more than 1860 megapascal and it will be drawn into five millimeter diameter wire the difficulty is how to maintain the strength of the materials the wire goes through a metallic solution at 450 degrees Celsius and is plated with a thin anti-corrosive coating the coating must resist up to 100 Years of environmental corrosion um the wire is transported to another workshop for the next step s foreign at the planning stage each wire is given its own position on the bridge 127 wires form a strand and 172 strands form a main cable two main cables will carry the weight of the bridge which is over 90 000 tons after six hours the 2 600 meter long strand is finished [Music] foreign [Music] Lake and await installation [Music] in this period of Rapid development every year ten thousand new bridges are built in China changing the lives of the people in the cities and towns they connect [Music] with their abundant bridge building experience Chinese Engineers are beginning to look further afield the ling ding young is an important Bay in southern China the earliest Advanced manufacturing and service centers in China can be found in its nine surrounding areas but poor Transportation links are a hindrance to further development the solution is a Sea Bridge the Hong Kong juhai Macau Bridge links Hong Kong in the East with juhai and Macau in the west the driving time will also be shortened from four hours to just 30 minutes it will take nine years 550 000 tons of steel and 2.3 million tons of cement to build the longest Sea Bridge in the world over a 35 kilometer wide stretch of water at the zhongshan manufacturing base the largest and heaviest steel box girder of the Hong Kong juhai Macau bridge is about to be shipped to the construction site its 128 meters long 38.8 meters wide and weighs 3510 tons that's equal to half the weight of the Eiffel Tower the engineers use precise manufacturing and hoisting techniques to lower the risks associated with steel box girder construction at sea to ensure a long service life a 2156 massive steel box girders are all manufactured in the factory went here the factory is full of automated equipment including laser cutters rolling machines and Welding robots this helps take the human error out of the equation it's also very challenging to transport the heavy girder to the ship it requires a mixture of Cutting Edge technology and good timing it's 6 a.m on an April morning and nearing high tide to carry the 3510 ton girder safely to the ship the engineers arrange four girder transport vehicles each of them has 32 axles and 128 Wheels making it possible to precisely adjust the direction is foreign it takes only 30 minutes to transport the girder to the barge there's now only one step left before the team achieves its goal after 24 hours the largest steel box girder has arrived at the installation site two heavy lifting machines will complete the work floating cranes were first used in China back in the 1950s when workers at wharves and ports used them to shuttle Goods to and fro back then the lifting capacity was between 30 to 300 tons with the increasing development of Maritime freight services the requirement for large installation equipment has increased as well nowadays one thousand to three thousand ton floating cranes are a common sight China also has the ability to manufacture floating cranes with a lifting capacity of over 12 000 tons everything is ready the workers have to connect the 40 lifting points on the girder to the crane in the shortest possible time then the two men in the cab will complete the task the biggest challenge in the hoisting operation is the coordination between the two cranes e foreign it takes only an hour and a half to install the girder in the right place it must be placed with an accuracy of two centimeters the block building technique is fundamental to the speed with which Chinese bridges are built today there are more than 750 000 bridges in China their total length is 42 600 kilometers roughly equal to the circumference of the Earth constant headache for the engineers is how to keep the bridges operating normally the dashung 1 Yangtze River Bridge is located in Nanjing the g254 high-speed train passes over it every day is an engineer working in Bridge construction every time the train passes over the bridge he closes his eyes foreign the train is running at a speed of 300 kilometers per hour and it only takes 28 seconds to cross the bridge the 610 passengers on board don't know that the Chinese Engineers prepared over 10 years for that half minute Journey [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] at a blazing speed of 300 kilometers per hour [Music] the bridge is one many important Awards including the George S Richardson medal for its excellent design and construction foreign making sure that trains can safely pass over the bridge is of daily importance it's 2 A.M and the last train of the day has just passed over the bridge maintenance work starts with checking the tools it's dangerous if any tools are left on high-speed track the workers have about four hours in the morning to conduct maintenance on the bridge sometimes they have even less time making quick decisions and fixing potential hidden problems while guaranteeing the safety of several hundred high-speed trains is a tall order to fulfill each and every day foreign besides on-site maintenance more advanced technology is being used for bridge monitoring 400 kilometers away Engineers are monitoring updated data coming in for more than 300 sensors on the bridge they can monitor the real-time data of each vehicle putting Advanced Analytical software they can assess the threat from overloaded Vehicles detect the location and degree of damage and provide advice on Solutions and repairs the data is sent to the Monitoring Center via the Internet the engineers can even keep tabs on the situation from outside China if need be another technology is in the final testing phase Wong boa is going to lead his team in conducting an important field test s the Tian Shing Joe Bridge is a twin pylon cable State Bridge its main span is 504 meters and it can Barrel load of 20 000 tons the longest cable is 271.9 meters with a bearing capacity of 1 250 tons on a cable State Bridge the cables must carry the load and are vulnerable to certain environmental factors they can suffer from cracks on the surface and internal damage so cable maintenance is very important the robot can carry out Precision tests to check both the external and internal Integrity of the cables the traditional method is to have men in crane baskets visually inspect the cable is foreign not only works well in the daytime but also at night after seeing large volumes of data the engineers are a bit worried about the safety of the bridge any overload will have a direct influence on the structural Integrity of the bridge foreign real cases remind the engineers to be extremely careful with and to report any signs of hidden problems to the relevant authorities to prevent an accident over the past 15 years the traffic department has stopped more than 150 000 overloaded trucks from passing across the first thousand meter long bridge in China foreign with the help of big data and the internet greater numbers of bridges are taking advantage of remote monitoring systems the data provides a useful reference for future bridge design as a satellite image shows the most brightly lit areas those with the highest traffic flow also happen to be those with the most bridges a well-connected traffic network is changing people's lives but in China's Western provinces change is happening at a much slower rate [Music] are located in Southwest China the average altitude of the three provinces is 2 600 meters because of large differences in altitude this part of the country enjoys a wide range of climatic conditions it's much harder to build an expressway here than on the central plains or across a stretch of ocean there's a national highway that winds its way through the mountains the two-lane road was built 30 years ago and is one of three roads giving access to China's Tibet autonomous region the travel time from yaan to Kang ding used to be one day but the newly built Expressway will shorten that to only four hours the key to this Expressway is a bridge building a bridge in a place like this presents an unprecedented problem for the engineers [Music] foreign the different geological structures and a lot of difficulty to the production of a key component to bridge building Anchorage good Anchorage is important for suspension bridges as it fastens the main cable securely the Western Bank is wide open and it's relatively easy to dig six hundred and thirty thousand cubic meters of Earth a 230 000 ton Anchor Point is under construction it's very difficult to dig a foundation bit of the same volume on the Eastern Bank because of the granite the engineers have to find other methods to stabilize the cables decide to excavate a huge tunnel in the mountain first they dig a 159 meter long tunnel then in it they build a 10-story high steel structure weighing 1000 tons finally they inject 8 600 cubic meters of concrete inside to integrate it fully into the Mountainside foreign steel tie rods is a great importance each Rod is going to be connected to one strand inside the main cable um attention to solve this problem the engineers abandoned the traditional hoisting method and instead use a hoisting cable technique they use two hanging points to adjust the angle of the rods and put them into their designated positions foreign [Music] steel tie rod is installed this clever method allows the anchoring of the tunnel to proceed smoothly 1200 kilometers away in tongchong Yunnan Province the 158 kilometer long bauschang tongchong Expressway is about to open to traffic is at the end of China's Expressway Network long Jiang is a large and beautiful River close to tongchong the river is a natural obstacle that had to be dealt with Engineers pondered how to cross the river for quite a long time 70 years ago this old suspension bridge was the only way of crossing the river it connected the people on the opposite banks of the river and was an important channel for the exchange of resources between China and Myanmar today a concrete bridge makes it more convenient yet it still takes about a half an hour to cross the river soon the bow shine Tong Chong Expressway is going to change this situation the 1196 meter long suspension bridge will shorten the driving time to less than a minute is the chief director of The Bridge Project 70 years ago members of his family built the old Suspension Bridge located here in Bridge engineering today he's in charge of the kind of bridge that his forefathers might have only dreamed about in the past joining their two sections of the bridge marks the success of the construction carefully checks each step to ensure that nothing is amiss [Music] the two Engineers who work with him are his classmates from 30 years ago this is a unique form of cooperation in bridge building in western China the bridge holds special importance [Music] so yeah [Music] not everybody agreed about the building of a sidewalk on the side of an expressway but Lee insisted on the design and made it happen [Music] ing [Music] um [Music] there's less than one hour to go before the two sections of the bridge are joined the last steel box girder is about to be transported from the factory um resembled in the narrow Workshop it requires special equipment to make a turn workers are extremely careful it takes them 40 minutes to walk the 100 meters Jesus the 195 ton steel box girder is lifted to its designated place in the final seconds of the move the workers have to put the locating pins into the holes seven years of hard work has finally paid off as the last girder is finally installed a bridge is the last part of the bauschan tong Chong Expressway it will not only connect the people here with the outside world but will also provide them with an opportunity to observe their Hometown from a different perspective this sort of bridge building technique is not the solution in all situations let's take a look at the Hong Kong juhai Macau Bridge a regulation troubles the engineers a main channel should be reserved for the 300 000 ton ships to pass through since it's located only 10 kilometers from the Hong Kong airport the safety of 1 800 flights going in and out of the airport every day must be taken into consideration well it's not hard to install a 200 meter high pylon the only choice here is to build an undersea tunnel this is an immersed tube tunnel Factory it manufactures the Bridge's key component of 33 immersed tunnel tubes each tube is 180 meters long 38 meters wide and 11.4 meters tall and weighs 76 000 tons it's a huge challenge for the bridge and tunnel industry to connect the tubes to a 6.2 kilometer long undersea tunnel the engineers decide to divide each two into eight sections to guarantee their precision they strap 1 100 tons of steel rebar into a frame structure and transport it to the automatic template Workshop then 3 300 cubic meters of concrete is injected into it four days later a 22 meter long tube section is produced under strict quality control eight sections will eventually be connected into one massive tube later on in the process compared with construction on land the installation of the 33 immersed tunnel tubes is far more challenging since this is the first time they've built such a deep tunnel their knowledge and instincts are put to an extreme test [Music] Kaiser [Applause] Lin Ming is the director of the immersed tube tunnel project in his opinion the installation is a risky proposition May is flood season in the Pearl River Region although it looks calm on the surface the runoff flow has increased sharply from 2 000 cubic meters per second to 26 000 cubic meters per second conditions are quite dangerous the mud drenched up by the rapidly flowing water May quickly cover the foundation trench 40 meters under the sea they have to complete the tube work before the trench is completely covered [Music] window of opportunity for them to complete the work they've been waiting 45 days for a day like this foreign foreign [Music] towed by eight tugboats with a power of 60 000 horsepower for 10 hours the e262 finally arrives at its docking position to the water 25 tubes have already been connected the workers are making their final preparations soon the 180 meter long tube will sink 25 meters and dock with the other assembled components the engineers adopt the staged sinking method they have 10 minutes between each phase to adjust the location of the tube [Music] they work non-stop until the next morning divers will dive 30 meters underwater to observe the docking status each diver can only stay at such a depth for 30 minutes it takes the engineers three hours to complete the final 10 centimeters foreign [Applause] six hours later the workers opened the water sealed door on one side noting that the undersea immersed tube tunnel is now 180 meters longer than it was the Hong Kong juhai Macau bridge will enhance the development of the Pearl River delta economic zone this will also end up benefiting the western part of China today distance is not only the physical length we see on the map but is also described by the time it takes to travel somewhere with the development of Roads the distance between people has decreased bridges help us conquer an ever increasing number of natural obstacles they connect different areas and enable people from different cultures to communicate with each other sometimes they even open the door to new opportunities [Music]

Channel: Free Documentary - Engineering

Views: 382,507

Keywords: free documentary, free documentary engineering, engineering, engineering documentary, tech, tech documentary, constructions, constructions documentary, technology documentary, extreme engineering documentary, bridge construction, china construction, heavy equipment, china engineering, bridge construction in river

Id: tXSO8VRkGAo

Length: 48min 1sec (2881 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 21 2023