On September 25, the Xiongshang High-Speed Railway project marked new progress: the Renqiu Grand Bridge's rotating bridge over the Beijing-Kowloon Railway, built by China Railway 14th Bureau Group, was successfully rotated into place. The bridge has the largest span among all rotating bridges on the Xiongshang High-Speed Railway and was the first of the line's seven rotating bridges to complete its 'gorgeous turn' in mid-air.

The Beijing-Kowloon Railway that the bridge crosses is a major north-south railway artery running through China, with a train passing through every five minutes on average at peak times. For this reason, the project first built the bridge bodies on both sides of the railway, and then adopted a construction plan of dual rotation and closure above the railway for the completed bridge bodies.

Before bridge rotation

The Renqiu Grand Bridge's rotating bridge over the Beijing-Kowloon Railway is a key control project. It has a dual-deck structure, with each side's bridge body 126 meters long and weighing 10,100 tonnes; after rotation, the vertical distance to the railway catenary is only 2.9 meters. During construction, the requirements for main girder alignment control and technical precision were extremely high, and safety risks were considerable.

Bridge rotating

The railway 'window' for this rotation was only 60 minutes. How to make the 10,000-tonne giant 'turn calmly' while ensuring the safety of existing line operations became a major challenge for the builders. To ensure railway operational safety, the project comprehensively reviewed key procedures and conducted a trial rotation before the formal rotation to ensure the reliable operation of the entire rotation system.

Builders debugging before rotation

At 7:35 that day, at the command of the on-site chief commander, and pulled by two 350-tonne continuous jacks, the girder body slowly rotated counterclockwise around the pier as its axis, finally successfully rotating 31.5 degrees and precisely reaching the predetermined position. During the rotation, the project department used the BeiDou satellite rotation system for monitoring, sensing the current posture of the rotating bridge in real time, and through 'full-process visualization and intelligent control' conducted advance analysis and warning, ensuring the entire rotation process was safe and controllable.

Rotation completed

The Xiongshang High-Speed Railway is an important part of the Beijing-Hong Kong (Taiwan) Corridor of China's 'Eight Vertical and Eight Horizontal' high-speed railway network. It is important infrastructure supporting and leading the in-depth development of the three major strategies of the 'Belt and Road Initiative', 'Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Coordinated Development' and 'Yangtze River Economic Belt', and helping to build the 'Xiong'an New Area' millennium project. Once completed, it will further improve the railway network structure of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and is of great significance for promoting economic and social development along the route.