Although the mountains are high and the valleys are deep, the ravines are crisscrossed, and although the special terrain has created the beautiful natural scenery of Guizhou, it has also set up many "roadblocks" for the people in the mountains to go out. Bridges connect mountains, canyons, and rivers, allowing Guizhou to achieve great changes from "thousands of ravines" to "high-speed plains"; Because of the large number of bridges, the variety and the quality of the bridge, Guizhou has also become a "bridge museum".
Ten thousand bridges fly frame, hold up a better life. The denser network of roads and bridges has improved the living conditions of Guizhou people, effectively connected the infrastructure distributed in the mountains, and people across the river have been able to travel conveniently.
The bridge network is accessible, paving the way for development. The bridge adds a different scenery to the mountain and makes the village lively. This is not only a vivid epitome of the leapfrog development of Guizhou's transportation construction, but also a piece of the puzzle of the great changes in the motherland's mountains and villages.
—Editor
Guizhou is one of the most typical areas in the world for karst landform development, with surface peaks towering and underground caves crisscrossed by flowing water. Data show that Guizhou has nearly 126.10 million mountains, and there are nearly <>,<> rivers with a length of more than <> kilometers alone.
"Even the peaks and the sky are fierce, and the birds can't get through." More than 500 years ago, Wang Yangming sighed in the face of the difficulties of the Qian Dao. Mountains and rivers block roads are difficult to travel, and bridges have become an important project for Guizhou to open up mountain roads.
Today, the 10,000 bridges in the lofty mountains of Guizhou have changed the way of the Heavenly Graben and made Guizhou a veritable "bridge museum".
The "Bridge Museum" covers almost all types of bridges in the world
Starting from Puji Bridge and smelling in Gejing Bridge, nearly half of the world's top 100 high bridges are now in Guizhou
What are the characteristics of this "bridge museum" in Guizhou?
There are many of them. By the end of 2022, more than 3,100 bridges of various types had been built or under construction in Guizhou, and nearly half of the world's top 8331 high bridges were in Guizhou. The Guizhou Expressway has 14230,1 kilometers in traffic, connecting 1,7 expressway bridges, which means that for every <> kilometer of expressway, there are <>.<> bridges.
All varieties. Suspension bridges, cable-stayed bridges, girder bridges, arch bridges... Guizhou bridges include almost all bridge types in the world today. Among them, the suspension bridge has become the preferred bridge type for Guizhou to build a large bridge across the Grand Canyon under complex geological conditions due to its superior crossing capacity.
There are boutiques. There are many ancient and modern famous bridges preserved in Guizhou, and the leading modern bridges in China and even the world are emerging one after another. These bridges have a long history, or superb construction technology, or rich regional characteristics, or have important historical and cultural value. According to the "Guizhou Bridge Record", "The existing bridges in Guizhou began at the Puji Bridge, smelled in the Gejing Bridge, and peaked at the Beipanjiang Bridge. ”
Puji Bridge is the earliest existing bridge in Guizhou, located in Zunyi City, is an ancient Yidao bridge in Chuanqian Province, which was built in the Southern Song Dynasty, destroyed by floods during the Ming Jiajing Dynasty, and the bridge body seen today is rebuilt during the Ming Chongzhen Dynasty. The bridge is a single-hole arc-shaped stone arch bridge, with a length of 14 meters, a width of 6 meters, a net span of 7 meters, and a height of 5 meters, which was listed as a cultural relic protection unit of Guizhou Province in 1985.
Built in the Ming Dynasty, Gejing Bridge is located in Fuquan City, across the Maha River, and is a three-hole stone arch bridge. The bridge arches on the cliff, borrowing the foot of a reef in the heart of the river, the design is wonderful, the materials are exquisite, the craftsmanship is exquisite, and it is still as strong as the beginning after more than 400 years, with the beautiful talk of "Zhaozhou Bridge in the north and Gejing Bridge in the south". Another surprising technology of Gejing Bridge is that the stones on the arch surface at the bottom of the bridge do not use a little adhesive, and the giant stones are closely combined with the tension of the arch bridge with the weight of the bridge body, perfectly bearing the pressure of the ancient bridge itself.
The Beipanjiang Bridge on the Bijie-Duge section of the Hangzhou-Rui Expressway is a steel truss cable-stayed bridge connecting Qianyun and Yunnan provinces, with a total weight of nearly 3,565 tons, the distance from the bridge deck to the river surface is 4.200 meters, and the height is more than <> floors of skyscrapers, which is the world's tallest bridge among the bridges currently built. Looking at it from afar, people seem to feel that "the bridge is not built on the top of the mountain, but on the edge of the sky; The car on the bridge does not drive past, like wings fly past."
World-class difficulty "forced" world-class bridges
It is not only necessary to meet the needs of travel development, but also to achieve harmonious coexistence with nature
In order to meet the needs of travel and development, Guizhou has broken through the difficulties of heavy mountains and mountains, built many practical and beautiful bridges, set world records again and again, and won international awards, which is inseparable from the innovative development of bridge structural forms and construction techniques.
In the 20s of the 80th century, Guizhou pioneered the truss composite arch bridge, and in 1995, the Jiangjiehe Bridge with a main span of 330 meters was built on Wujiang Tianyan, which was the world's largest span concrete truss composite arch bridge at that time; After 2000, the construction technology of bridges in Guizhou continued to improve and make breakthroughs, such as the Balinghe Bridge in Anshun City, which is the world's first mountainous canyon kilometer-level bridge.
The Baling River Bridge also kicked off the construction of a world-class bridge in Guizhou. The main span of the bridge is 1088 meters, the bridge deck is 370 meters from the water, the west bank is Guansuoling, and the east bank is Shaojia Mountain. In the past, if people on both sides of the strait thought of the other side, it would take an hour to drive. In 2005, Guizhou began construction of the Baling River Bridge. However, the terrain on both sides is steep and the river valley is high, and there are many difficulties to build a kilometer-level span bridge.
Cable pulling is the key link of the suspension bridge into the superstructure construction, but the bridge has a large span and long distance, artificial cable pulling is impossible, and the cost of helicopter traction is too high, and the cable pulling has become a difficult problem in front of the builder. After many investigations and comprehensive demonstrations, they decided to use a remote-controlled airship to lead the pilot cable with a thick wool to the opposite bank, and finally formed the skeleton of the cat road through back and forth traction. With the catway, there is a high-altitude construction platform for erecting the main cable of the bridge. The use of airships to tow the pilot cable is the first time in the world in the construction of suspension bridges, and the Balinghe Bridge has also successfully broken through many other bottlenecks in the construction of kilometer-level span bridges in mountain canyons, forming a complete set of core technologies. After its completion in 2009, the driving time on both sides of the Ba Ling River Gorge was shortened to 4 minutes.
Over the years, Guizhou has continued to improve and innovate in bridge construction technology: bridge construction is more intelligent, Huajiang Gorge Bridge has built an intelligent construction system, and various construction equipment is connected through 5G network, which can improve the installation accuracy and construction efficiency of steel bars; The bridge construction accuracy is higher, and the overall rigid knot system of the Deyu Expressway Wujiang Bridge is connected with 22,3 sets of high-strength bolts, without any welding, and the bolting accuracy is strictly controlled within <> mm.
But to build world-class bridges, we must not only pursue technological innovation, but also achieve harmony with nature.
In April 2022, the 4th International Bridge Conference came with the news: Guizhou's Huayudong Bridge was awarded the "Gustavus Lindthal Award". This "small bridge", built on an ordinary national and provincial trunk line with a main span of only 180 meters, has won international awards over many bridges with large spans and heights, which may be inseparable from its efforts to protect the ecology.
The original Huayudong Bridge, which was completed and opened to traffic in 1991, is located on the Guihuang Highway, but due to the construction technology of that year and the high traffic volume in recent years, the bridge was classified as a dangerous bridge and had to be reconstructed. However, the Red Maple Lake under the bridge is a first-class protection area for drinking water sources, and blowing up, demolishing or building another bridge will cause environmental disturbance. Engineers came up with a novel scheme, using "old bridges to build new arches, new arches to demolish old bridges", new and old to gradually recycle waste and wastewater, and then use them as raw materials for new bridges without causing environmental pollution. After the opening of the Huayudong Bridge in 2021, the expected goals of "zero pollution of water sources, zero interference in scenic spots, waste reuse, and new landmarks of the landscape" will be achieved. Reporter Wang Zhiqiu, Ye Qi, Huang Xian, Chen Junyi (Source: People's Daily)