Shunde Grand Bridge Earns Patent for Smart Tower Cranes - Innovation Enhances Safety and Development of the GBA

The Shunde Grand Bridge is a key project in the Shunde District of Foshan. Its cable tower adopts a rare hybrid structure with a steel upper tower and a steel-concrete composite lower tower to achieve better environmental performance. The total length of the main bridge and bridge approach span 2.62 kilometers, comprises a bridge over the Ronggui Waterway and four bridge ramps. The bridge will be opened to traffic in 2025, which will bring the two subdistricts Ronggui and Daliang closer and benefit the development of the GBA. Ir Albert CHENG, Executive Director of the Construction Industry Council, led the GBA Technical Tour Delegation to visit to this iconic infrastructure by the Road & Bridge International Co., Ltd, which included the patented tower-lifting machine and smart site safety system.

Factory Assembly Showcasing Mi Infinity

To minimise the impact on the original navigation channel, the main bridge is designed as a continuous semi-floating high-low twin-tower hybrid cable-stayed bridge. The bridge towers are of 204 metres and 151 metres tall. To take the taller tower as an example, it is divided into 32 sections, with the lower beam being a "steel composite structure" weighing about 589 tonnes, the middle and upper beams being steel structures, and the tower sections are made up of both "steel composite structure" and "steel structure". The sections of the tower were constructed in the factory, saving manpower and reducing risks and time working at height. Mr. HUANG Kai-kai from the project team also shared that, “the use of a large number of steel structures can effectively reduce pollution caused by concrete construction and facilitate the recycling of steel materials, thus achieving a low carbon footprint.”

Develop Tower Lifting Machine as a “Transformer”

Most of the steel towers of cable-stayed bridges and suspension bridges in China were installed by floating cranes and tower cranes, and tower cranes are more commonly used for the installation of steel towers with divided sections due to their wider coverage. However, according to Mr. HUANG Kai-kai, the lack of tower cranes with lifting capacity of over 200 tonnes and their low utilisation rate in China prompted them to develop a tower hoist during the construction of the Shunde Grand Bridge. The tower hoist, which is hydraulically operated, has a vertical climbing capacity of 250 tonnes and is suitable for constructing bridge's cable towers, beams and steel box girders, enabling it to be used for three purposes. After continuous adaptation and improvement, the tower hoist completed the first lift of the tower in September 2022 and completed the lifting of section T17 in February 2023, with a total of 26 sections of left and right tower limbs. It took only 108 days to build up to 112 metres, with an average height of approximately 1 metre per day. The tower sections are manufactured in the factory and installed on site by means of an intelligent tower hoist, which effectively reduces the time required for working at height. To further ensure the safety of the workers, a smart control centre is set up on site to monitor wind speed, weather and cylinder pressure, while key technical staff stayed in the centre to monitor and direct the project operation via 360° cameras and multiple screens, so that only three people were required to work at height.

Top 50 in GBA and Promising Future of the Application

Compared to floating cranes, tower hoists are cheaper and can be used in a wider range of applications, even in mountainous areas. The tower crane has been granted six patents, as well as a number of patents for development and subsequent planning, and was selected as one of the "Top 50 Strategic Emerging Industry Cluster Projects" in the 2022 GBA High-value Patent Portfolio Layout Competition among over 1,000 participating teams. After visiting the Shunde Grand Bridge, Ir Albert CHENG, Executive Director of the CIC, commended the team for their continuous innovation and development of safer and more efficient tower-lifting machines, which will benefit more large-scale infrastructure and construction projects.