Spread across the world are some incredible feats of engineering – bridges that span lakes, seas and wide stretches of land, enabling cities and regions to be better connected. Whether they have been built to handle high-speed trains or streams of road traffic, these impressive projects show just how much human innovation has evolved in the past few decades.
One such bridge is the Cangde Grand Bridge, which forms part of China’s Beijing–Shanghai High-Speed Railway in the northern Hebei province. This engineering marvel is the world’s fifth-longest bridge, after the likes of the Danyang–Kunshan Grand Bridge and Tianjin Grand Bridge, also found on the same railway line, and Taiwan’s Changhua–Kaohsiung Viaduct. It stretches for an incredible 65.71 miles and was completed in 2010.
The Cangde Grand Bridge was designed to be earthquake-resistant in a region often plagued by tremors and comprises a total of 3,092 piers crossing the Wei River and several other small rivers. The 3,092 pillars also manage soft-soil settlement, common in the North China Plain, by distributing weight and accommodating minor shifts over time.
Constructed and designed by China Railways Group Limited (CREC) and its affiliates, the Cangde Grand Bridge was built in collaboration with a large group of Chinese engineers, architects and civil engineering experts. The ultimate goal was to design and build a bridge that would withstand the requirements of high-speed rail networks, especially one that is the world’s busiest passenger rail corridor connecting two of the world’s biggest megacities.
The bridge was constructed using precast concrete segments. These segments were manufactured off-site, under controlled conditions, before they were transported to the site for assembly.
Designed to seamlessly traverse plains, rivers, farmland and occasionally the edge of urban developments, the bridge maintains consistent track alignment for trains reaching 217 mph.
As mentioned, the Beijing–Shanghai High-Speed Railway boasts many of the world’s longest bridges. The Danyang–Kunshan Grand Bridge is the world’s longest bridge and has been since it was completed in 2010 and opened in 2011. Construction began in 2006 and cost a whopping $8.5 billion (£6.3 billion), with around 10,000 people working on it over its four-year building period. It carries the high-speed railway across the Yangtze River Delta.
It stretches for an incredible 102.4 miles and has around 2,000 spans, supported by approximately 9,500 to 10,000 concrete piles. It includes a 5.6-mile stretch over the Yangcheng Lake in Suzhou and averages about 100 feet above the ground.
With the help of its vast bridges, the Beijing–Shanghai high-speed network slashes the travel time between the two megacities from 10 hours to just under five.