Danyang-Kunshan Grand Bridge is the longest of its kind in the world at a length of 164.8 kilometers. It is located in Kunshan, a county-level city in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangsu.
With a height of 100 feet and a span of 260 feet, the bridge carries Beijing–Shanghai High-Speed Railway between Shanghai to Nanjing in Jiangsu province.
The composition of the Danyang-Kunshan Grand Bridge
Danyang-Kunshan Grand Bridge is a cable-stayed bridge. It consists of two main sections i.e., the Danyang section and the Kunshan section. The former is 52.4 kilometres long while the latter is 112.4 kilometres long.
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The bridge can also be viewed as a “classic” railway viaduct because it does not span a deep gorge or a raging river. It runs primarily over land. The only exception is an approximately 9-kilometre-long section at Suzhou, where it crosses parts of Yangcheng Lake.
This section of the bridge is built on top of a total of 2,000 pillars, steel cables and a massive 450,000 tons of steel structure. The rest of the Danyang-Kunshan Grand Bridge is supported by 9500 concrete pilings.
Construction and the contractor
The construction of the Danyang-Kunshan Grand Bridge took place between 2006 and 2010. The first of over two thousand pillars of the bridge was cast in the spring of 2008. The last beam was put in place in May 2009 while the track laying work was completed in November 2010.
China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC), a subsidiary of China Communications Construction Company designed and built the bridge. Reportedly more than 10,000 people worked on the project.
Cost of the project
The construction of the Danyang-Kunshan Grand Bridge cost a staggering US$ 8.5 billion. This is approximately US$ 51 million per kilometre.
