The Wuqu Yarlung Tsangpo Bridge, a controlling project on the Lhasa-Shigatse Expressway and the bridge with the greatest construction difficulty and the longest span on the entire route, was successfully closed recently, marking another major advance in the construction of this highway.

Located in Qushui County, Lhasa City, Tibet, the Wuqu Yarlung Tsangpo Bridge crosses the Yarlung Tsangpo River. Its left line is 772 meters long and its right line 672 meters long, with a main span of 150 meters; both the left and right bridge decks are 12.75 meters wide. The main bridge is a concrete continuous rigid-frame structure, and its four main piers all exceed 40 meters in height, making it a typical high-pier, long-span bridge. It is being built by China Railway 17th Bureau Group.

"The main bridge's pile foundations are located in the river valleys on both banks of the Yarlung Tsangpo, where the working space is limited, the technical difficulty is great and the safety risk is high. During construction, the large rise in water levels during the rainy season brought enormous difficulties to pile foundation work," said Wu Xudong, project manager of China Railway 17th Bureau Group. The bridge is a continuous rigid-frame bridge connected to a tunnel. After comparing options, they adopted one-time casting with a form traveler for the construction of the side-span closure and the side-span cast-in-place segment, pushing the traveler formwork to the transition pier and casting the side-span cast-in-place segment and the side-span closure segment simultaneously, thereby successfully overcoming the construction challenge.

The reporter learned from the Transport Department of the Tibet Autonomous Region that the second phase (middle section) of the Lhasa-Shigatse Expressway, which is under full-scale construction, is 91.1 kilometers long, with a bridge-to-tunnel ratio of 71.6%. The Lhasa-Shigatse Expressway adopts the technical standards of a first-class highway, with a design speed of 100 kilometers per hour. Construction of the highway began in June 2020 and it is scheduled to be completed and opened to traffic in 2024.