XCMG Products｜Hello, "Changtai"! XCMG Supports the Construction of a World-Class Bridge Project!
On September 9, the Changtai Yangtze River Bridge – the world’s longest-span cable-stayed bridge – officially opened to traffic, shortening the travel time between Changzhou and Taizhou in Jiangsu Province from 80 minutes to approximately 20 minutes.
XCMG's ultra-large tower crane XGT15000-600S witnessed the steady and gradual rise of the south main tower in the main navigation channel of the Changtai Yangtze River Bridge.
This world’s largest-tonnage 10,000-ton-class tower crane effectively guaranteed the project’s quality and safety, successfully resolving challenges such as linear alignment issues in tower column construction and ultra-high-altitude pumping of ultra-high-strength concrete.
The Changtai Yangtze River Bridge adopts a "three-in-one" model integrating an expressway, an intercity railway, and an ordinary highway. As the world’s longest-span cable-stayed bridge, its main tower is designed to have a total height of 350 meters. The bridge plays a crucial role in supporting the construction of the “Yangtze River Economic Belt”, the integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta, and other major national strategies.
The installation height of Pier 6 of the bridge is as high as 379 meters, and the challenges lie not only in the hoisting during the steel tower construction phase but also in the entire process: from the initial pre-embedding of foundation sections inside the bearing platform, to the subsequent jacking-up, heightening, and attachment of the tower body, to the specific high-voltage electricity supply, as well as the maintenance of thousands of meters of steel cables and the dismantling of equipment after its service life. Every link and detail in these processes must be executed without errors.
To complete a series of steel tower hoisting operations with a maximum lifting weight of over 500 tons at an altitude of more than 300 meters, extremely strict requirements are imposed on the lifting performance, control performance, and safety performance of tower cranes. The construction difficulty is also unprecedented in the history of global tower crane hoisting.
To strongly support the construction of the Changtai Yangtze River Bridge – a world-class mega project – XCMG jointly developed the world’s largest tower crane, XGT15000-600S, with China Railway Major Bridge Engineering Group Co., Ltd. (CRMBG). The crane successfully rolled off the production line and was delivered on June 2, 2022. With a rated lifting torque of 15,000 ton-meters, a maximum lifting height of 400 meters, and a maximum lifting weight of 600 tons, this product can effectively solve the persistent long-standing problems in the industry, such as heavy hoisted components, high construction altitudes, and large operation spans.
On the morning of September 26, 2023, as the last segment was steadily placed in the designated position on the upper tower column, the 350-meter-high south main tower of the Changtai Yangtze River Bridge was successfully capped. Afterwards, the "one-click paving" of the bridge’s large-width full-span deck surface layer also attracted wide attention.
The paving work was conducted using XCMG’s independently developed large-size paver and a 13-ton dual steel-wheel roller. With a paving width of 15 meters and a pavement thickness of 4 cm, this is a large-width full-span deck surface layer paving operation, which achieves a dual improvement in construction efficiency and bridge deck flatness. It strongly ensured the smooth opening of Jiangsu’s 20th cross-river passage and created a milestone project in China’s ultra-large-span and multifunctional bridges.
