The single-cable pull of the tunnel anchor reaches 50,000 tons, the world's largest! On June 15, the Nanjinguan Yangtze River Bridge, a control project of the Yichang West Expressway, reached a major milestone as the tunnel anchor on the north bank officially began excavation.

The tunnel anchor is the core load-bearing structure of the Nanjinguan Yangtze River Bridge and a key component that bears the main cable tension and ensures the overall stability of the bridge; its construction quality directly determines the safety performance and service life of the entire bridge. Both the north and south banks of the Nanjinguan Yangtze River Bridge use tunnel anchor construction.

"To use a vivid analogy, a traditional gravity anchor is like a large counterweight, relying on its own weight; whereas a tunnel anchor is like putting a stopper inside a bottle, using clever leverage," said Wang Jinxu, deputy chief engineer of the CCCC Second Harbor Engineering Bureau's West Expressway Section 2 project. The tunnel anchor now under excavation relies on the load-bearing characteristics of the bedrock of the Xiling Gorge mountain to build the anchorage system; compared with traditional gravity anchorage, it offers advantages such as smaller excavation volume, less land occupation, less ecological disturbance, and suitability for mountainous terrain.

Previously, the Nanjinguan Yangtze River Bridge successfully completed the pile foundation construction of the north bank main pier. The excavation of the bridge's tunnel anchor this time, together with the main pier construction, forms a two-pronged attack that will greatly accelerate the overall construction progress.

The Nanjinguan Yangtze River Bridge is the first "bridge-tourism integration" project in the province and has been selected as a demonstration project of the Ministry of Transport's "Transport Powerhouse" initiative. It adopts a unique double-deck design: the upper deck is a two-way, eight-lane expressway to ensure traffic efficiency; the lower deck features a dedicated slow-traffic system where, in the future, tourists can walk, cycle, or take sightseeing electric carts. The bridge itself is an aerial viewing platform and will in the future link several well-known scenic areas, including the Yangtze Three Gorges National Geopark, the Qingjiang National Forest Park, and the Chexi Scenic Area, achieving a "string of pearls along one line"; it is also of great significance for improving the Three Gorges comprehensive transportation system and serving the construction of the national major strategic project of the new Three Gorges water transport corridor.

Source: Hubei Daily