Guozigou Bridge Cable Stayed Bridge Xinjiang

Client Background

Guozigou Bridge is a cable stayed bridge in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China, located on the Guozigou gorge. It is one of the main components of the Lianyungang to Horgos Expressway, national highway G30, and an important livelihood project in Xinjiang.

Project Challenge

It is the first cable stayed bridge and the highest bridge in Xinjiang, and the first highway steel truss cable stayed bridge in China. The bridge is 700 metres long, the net height between the bridge deck and the valley bottom is 200 metres, the span is 360 metres and the two main towers are 209 metres and 215.5 metres high. The main bridge uses a steel truss beam structure with high strength bolt connections, and the installation accuracy had to be controlled within two millimetres.

Customer Pain Points

• Steel truss sections had to be placed 200 metres above the valley floor
• Installation accuracy was controlled within two millimetres across a 360 metre span
• The construction had to overcome difficulties in geography, weather and technology
• The stay cable steel wire bundle diameter is 7 mm with a tensile strength standard value of 1670 MPa

Our Solution

This is one of the typical cases of lifting sling application. Soft lifting slings were used to place the steel truss sections, where a sling has to combine high capacity with the ability to be handled by the erection crew at height and to place a section without damaging the protective coating on the steelwork.

Manufacturing Process And Quality Control

Every item that ships is tested to the level its product family requires. Grade 80 components are individually proof tested at 2.5 times the working load limit and given 100 percent magnaflux crack detection. Soft slings are sample proof loaded to the declared safety factor and individually bagged with a CE declaration of conformity.

Supply Chain Coordination

Goods from each factory are delivered into our logistics warehouse in Ningbo, checked against the packing list and the certificates, and loaded into one shipment. That keeps a project order arriving as a single delivery rather than in parts.

Final Result

The project started on 16 August 2006 and opened to traffic on 30 September 2011. The total investment was 2.39 billion yuan, with a cost of 3.4 million yuan per metre. Guozigou Bridge integrates new technology, new structure and new equipment, and it was a major breakthrough in the history of Xinjiang highway construction.

Customer Benefit

If you have the opportunity to travel to Xinjiang, drive on the Guozigou Bridge to experience the scale of the structure and the workmanship of the slings and the construction engineers.