The Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge is currently under intensive construction, with the main works expected to be fully connected within June. Statistics show that over the past five years, more than half of the world's long-span bridges have appeared in China. Records such as "longest" and "highest" are constantly being written into the history of world bridge engineering. They not only turn "natural chasms into thoroughfares" but also make "Chinese bridges" a new brand showcasing China's image. What records have Chinese bridges actually set? At present, the steel sealing doors of the final joint of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge's immersed tube tunnel are being dismantled. Once this work is completed, the main part of the world's largest sea-crossing bridge-island-tunnel project will be fully connected.
When this mega project officially opens this year, it will cross Zhuhai, connect the Macao Peninsula, and lead to Lantau Island in Hong Kong. The drive from Zhuhai to Hong Kong will take only 30 minutes. Nearly 4 kilometers of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge's immersed tube tunnel are buried at a depth of more than 20 meters, which has no precedent in the world. Chinese engineers innovatively proposed the "semi-rigid" immersed tube structural concept and developed a "memory joint" based on the fracture mechanics properties of materials. "To gain this understanding, we went through the most tortuous process in the seven years of island and tunnel construction," said Lin Ming, chief engineer of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge island and tunnel project, with emotion. To this day, Lin Ming still cannot forget that scene—several years ago, he and several colleagues went to the Netherlands for tests on the final joint design of the immersed tube. A top Dutch engineering consulting company invited them for an exchange. To welcome the Chinese engineers, they specially raised the Chinese national flag. This was only the second time the flag had been raised for guests since the company was founded in 1881. "Looking at this Chinese national flag before us, we were filled with emotion! What they admired was not only China's strength and China's mega projects, but also the unremitting efforts of Chinese engineers and the leap in immersed tube tunnel technology. We have earned the respect of peers worldwide!" In the 1990s, when mainland China began building its first immersed tube tunnel, the United States, the Netherlands, and Japan already had nearly 100 immersed tube tunnels. "Mainland China has only a history of more than 20 years in immersed tube tunnels so far," Lin Ming said. Before the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, the world's longest highway immersed tube tunnel was less than 4 kilometers long; the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge immersed tube tunnel reaches 6.7 kilometers.

△The super engineer team behind the mega project

Where do China's leap and China's confidence actually come from?

"Without a doubt, from our institutional advantages," Lin Ming said firmly. In the past, technological blockades and even exorbitant prices left countries with weak scientific and technological strength with little choice but to give up or submit. After more than 30 years of reform and opening up, China now possesses strong scientific and technological innovation capabilities and systems.

"Today, China can do things it could not do in the past!" In Lin Ming's view, cross-industry and cross-disciplinary integrated innovation is even more explosive. What is compared now is not just a certain specialty or technical field, but more the use of systematic control and correct ways of thinking to coordinate and solve complex problems.

In addition, China's breakthroughs and technological accumulation in the bridge field are also closely related. In this regard, the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Transport have established China's only national engineering research center in the bridge field: the National Engineering Research Center for Bridges. Zhang Xigang, director of the center, said that the center, centering on national and industry development needs, has established R&D and engineering verification platforms urgently needed for the construction of long-span, wide, deep-water, and offshore bridges, greatly helping to enhance the core competitiveness of China's bridge technology.

△Yingwuzhou Yangtze River Bridge