On June 19, with the completion of the final concrete pour, the pylon of the cable-stayed bridge with low towers spanning the Shanghai-Shaanxi Expressway on the Shanghai-Nanjing-Hefei High-Speed Railway (Anhui Section) was successfully capped. The bridge was surveyed and designed by China Railway First Survey and Design Institute Group (FSDI) and constructed by China Railway Construction Bridge Engineering Bureau Group. The project has achieved new progress.

Site of the bridge pylon capping

The grand bridge spanning the Shanghai-Shaanxi Expressway is one of the controlling works of the Anhui Section, with a total length of 20.87 km. Its main bridge adopts a prestressed concrete cable-stayed bridge with low towers, twin pylons and double cable planes, with a main span of 240 m. The structural system features fixed pylon-girder connections and separated pylon-pier connections, with a total girder length of 490 m. The stay cables are anchored on the girder at the outer side of the flanges, and the pylon anchorage adopts a prestressed bidirectional anti-slip stay cable system with saddles and steel strands. The pylon is of the vertical double-column type, with a height of 43.2 m, and was constructed using hydraulic self-climbing formwork.

During the bridge design process, the technical team conducted multiple scheme comparison studies and adopted a design scheme of applying jacking force after structural closure and installing auxiliary pier bearings, effectively solving the design difficulty caused by unbalanced bending moments. At the same time, the design team reasonably applied force-measuring bearings and an intelligent monitoring system, providing scientific guarantees for bridge construction decision-making and technical guidance.

According to Wang Wendong, the bridge project leader of FSDI: "The cable anchorage zone of the pylon is an important load-bearing part of a cable-stayed bridge. In this zone, the stay cable anchorage points are concentrated and the cable forces are large, making the stress conditions very complex." In response, the FSDI construction support technical team closely monitored the bridge construction progress and provided detailed guidance multiple times on the construction of stay cable anchorage blocks, pylon concrete pouring, and saddle installation, providing strong guarantees for the capping of the cable-stayed bridge pylon.

The Shanghai-Nanjing-Hefei High-Speed Railway (Anhui Section) is designed for a speed of 350 km/h and is an important component of the Yangtze River Corridor in the "Eight Vertical and Eight Horizontal" national medium- and long-term railway network plan. It mainly undertakes the transport of passenger flows on the main network of the Yangtze River Corridor and part of the direct passenger flows to Shanghai from the coastal and Beijing-Shanghai corridors. The line has a total length of 130.9 km, with bridges accounting for 83%. After completion, the project will be of great significance for optimizing the railway network layout in the Yangtze River region, serving the coordinated development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt, and promoting high-quality integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta.