Recently, with the completion of the hoisting of the last side-span steel box girder, the incremental launching construction of all 8 newly built overpasses in the Suipan section of the Beijing-Harbin Expressway, constructed by China Railway Construction Bridge Engineering Bureau Group, has been fully completed. This marks the project's successful victory in the "toughest battle" of the critical action to "demolish old bridges and build new ones," laying a solid foundation for achieving the milestone goal of opening to traffic in the Beijing direction of the Beijing-Harbin Expressway.

Construction site

At this critical juncture, tremendous effort is most needed. To ensure passage for local residents, the second batch of old bridge demolitions and new bridge construction proceeded simultaneously. On September 18, the project team worked through the night for 15 hours to complete the demolition of four old overpasses: Xinglong Footbridge, Zhuzongfen Footbridge, Heitailingnan Footbridge, and Shanwanzi Footbridge. The demolished overpasses had a total length of 90.18 meters and consisted of 14+27+27+14 meter cast-in-place concrete box girders, involving two spans over the road section, and were demolished using a direct crushing technique. All 8 overpasses in this incremental launching construction adopted the walking-type incremental launching method. Among them, the most challenging was the Gaoling Separated Interchange Bridge, with a clear deck width of 9 meters, a span of 108 meters, and a steel box girder weighing 308 tons—equivalent to the weight of 205 passenger cars. It crosses over the G1 Beijing-Harbin Expressway, which has heavy traffic volumes, numerous risk factors, and high traffic organization and safety control requirements.

To ensure the steel box girder could "span the expressway" and be accurately lowered into place, the project team, based on actual site conditions, carefully planned and scientifically organized detailed arrangements for the segmented hoisting of the steel box girder, incremental launching construction, and girder lowering construction, and conducted multiple technical briefings. Ultimately, the steel box girder was successfully launched into position. Throughout this period, the Beijing-Harbin Expressway maintained normal traffic flow, fully achieving the project's expected goal of zero interference with the expressway's operations.

The successful completion of the overpass incremental launching has created favorable conditions for the expansion of the project's work areas. The project department will maintain a steady pace, fully advance bridge deck system construction, continue to accelerate efficiency and ensure safety, and strive forward to achieve the goal of steady progress toward through-traffic on the left carriageway in the Beijing direction!

The Beijing-Harbin Expressway is a national trunk line of the "Five Vertical and Seven Horizontal" national highway network, and also a major transportation artery connecting the three northeastern provinces and eastern Inner Mongolia with the North China region. Upon completion of the reconstruction and expansion project, it will greatly improve regional traffic conditions and enhance the highway's capacity and service level, and will become the longest 10-lane expressway in the country by mileage.