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A photo of Hangzhou Bay Cross-sea Railway Bridge under construction. [Photo/Tide News]

The first main tower pier foundation for central navigation bridge of the Hangzhou Bay Cross-sea Railway Bridge, the world's largest span ballastless track three-tower steel truss cable-stayed bridge, connecting Jiaxing and Ningbo, was completed on April 26.

This bridge under construction spans 29.2 kilometers is designed with a ballastless track for speeds of 350 kilometers per hour. It consists of the north, central, and south three navigation bridges and approach bridges.

The central navigation bridge, with a total length of 1.43 km and a main span of 364 meters, features three diamond-shaped bridge towers, with the central tower reaching a height of 202 meters, equivalent to a 70-story building. The newly constructed No 81 pier foundation is equivalent in size to five standard basketball courts, facing multiple world-class technical challenges during construction.

The project team innovatively established a "tidal dynamic database", integrating weather forecasts and real-time monitoring data to accurately predict daily tidal patterns, ensuring precise matching of over 1,370 metric tons of steel reinforcement and other bulk construction materials with the tide fluctuations. The maritime department simultaneously opened a green channel to ensure zero delays in material transportation.

While overcoming transportation challenges, the technical team also solved the problem of large-volume concrete temperature control.

A cooling system consisting of 1,200 meters of water pipes coupled with an information monitoring platform was used to regulate the temperature of the drying concrete. Structural cracks were prevented by keeping the temperature difference within 15 degrees for 13,800 cubic meters of concrete.