Bottom-sealing of the West Cable Tower Pile Cap of the Lion Ocean Bridge

On November 7, after 50 hours of continuous operation, the bottom-sealing concrete pouring for the west cable tower pile cap of the Lion Ocean Bridge, the main bridge of the Lion Ocean Link project constructed by CCCC Second Harbor Engineering Co., Ltd., was completed. This marks a new stage in the construction of what is currently the world's longest-span double-deck suspension bridge, laying a solid foundation for the pile cap of the main tower to emerge from the water and for subsequent construction. The bridge will transition from underwater to above-water construction.

The Lion Ocean Link is another ultra-large-scale east-west river-crossing project in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, following the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge and the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Link. With a total length of approximately 35 kilometers, the river-crossing section adopts a double-deck bridge about 12.5 kilometers long, making it the first double-deck river-crossing link at the Pearl River Estuary.

The Lion Ocean Bridge is a key controlling project of the Lion Ocean Link, with a main span of 2,180 meters and a tower height of 342 meters. It features double-deck 16-lane configuration (8 lanes on the upper deck plus 8 lanes on the lower deck) and is the world's first double-deck suspension bridge with a span exceeding 2,000 meters, as well as the world's longest-span double-deck suspension bridge at present.

The west cable tower pile cap of the Lion Ocean Bridge adopts a separated design, with each side having a circular plan, a height of 9 meters and a diameter of 40 meters. The foundation pit support for the pile cap construction adopts a steel sheet pile cofferdam structure, connecting the pile foundation deeply embedded 70 meters into the riverbed with the 342-meter-high tower column, making it one of the important load-bearing structures of the bridge. The bottom-sealing concrete in this operation is 2.5 meters thick, using underwater C25 concrete, with a total pouring volume of approximately 8,637 cubic meters. During the underwater concrete pouring process, the concrete is pumped by a pump truck into a hopper and then conveyed through tremie pipes to the cofferdam base. Due to the large concrete volume and large pouring area, the concrete was poured in left and right sections to facilitate construction organization.

The project has built a self-developed cloud concrete plant, achieving automated control of the entire process from raw material feeding, loading, mixing to discharge, and has continuously optimized the concrete mix proportion scheme and adjusted the underwater retarding time to ensure that no cold joints occur during concrete pouring. The successful bottom-sealing of the west cable tower pile cap provides a safe and reliable construction environment for subsequent pile cap construction.