The Asian Giant, China has astonished the world with another
engineering masterpiece. A challenging project was put forward by the
Chinese government to make a 250 meter long 6 lane flyover above the
high-speed...
*ROTATING 17000+ TON BRIDGE*
The Asian Giant, China has astonished the world with another
engineering masterpiece. A challenging project was put forward by the
Chinese government to make a 250 meter
long 6 lane flyover above the high-speed railway without stopping the
railway service for even a minute! With the country’s high speed rail
network being the largest in the world, it was considered not feasible
to even halt it temporarily.
A traditional construction of the
overpass would not be feasible as it would disturb the high speed
railway track below it in Wuhan City. So the Chinese then built the
flyover section that would go over all of the railway station parallel
to the rails. Then, in a remarkable act of engineering, they lifted the
17,000 ton structure 15 meters, slowly rotated it 106 degrees, and
connected it to the highway lane in 90 minutes.
Today, the overpass is 256m long and spans 11 railways, including the 1,428 mile-long Beijing-Guangzhou service.
Engineering problems are under-defined, there are many solutions, good,
bad and indifferent. The art is to arrive at a good solution. This is a
creative activity, involving imagination, intuition and deliberate
choice.
– Ove Arup
