On January 12, the main tower of the Baisha Bridge in Liuzhou, Guangxi, currently the world's longest asymmetric cable-stayed bridge, was closed at a height of 106 meters, marking the bridge's construction entering its final stage.

　　Liuzhou, known as the "Museum of Bridges", has already built 19 bridges across the Liu River. The 20th, the Baisha Bridge, to be completed, is called the "Gate of Liuzhou". The bridge is constructed by China Railway Shanghai Engineering Bureau Co., Ltd. and started construction in 2015.

　　According to Liu Mingyou, project manager of the Baisha Bridge, the main tower is 106 meters high, the steel box girder incremental launching span is 65 meters, and the main bridge is a "spatial irregular twisted asymmetric full-floating system". In August 2017, the Baisha Bridge successfully applied for the "Construction Method for Incremental Launching of Large-Span Steel Box Girders with Asymmetric Structure" through the State Intellectual Property Office. The method states that the bridge is currently the longest span among bridges of the same structural type in the world.

　　The construction of the Baisha Bridge is guided by science and technology, and during construction, 16 national authorized patents were obtained. During the hoisting of the main tower, the bridge pioneered the information-based construction technology for complex steel bridges in China. The main tower of the Baisha Bridge adopts a rectangular cross-section steel box structure with a single box and seven chambers, consisting of 27 steel segments with a total weight of 4,178 tons. The largest segment weighs 293.4 tons, about the weight of 70 adult African elephants.

　　Because the main tower of the Baisha Bridge is a spatial irregular structure, the closure is like twisting two straight steel towers into a "twist" in the air at 106 meters, making construction extremely difficult. To address this, the project department designed an integral truss that can simultaneously meet the requirements of the main tower's height, irregular structure, linearity, and stability, and can achieve modular design and rapid on-site installation, and adopted the assembly method for erection.

　　According to Tang Jun, a "bridge construction expert" from China Railway Shanghai Bureau, after comparing with construction modes of similar bridges in the world, it was found that the comprehensive bridge construction technology and methods of the Baisha Bridge are pioneering in China and first-class in international construction of similar bridges.

　　As a key livelihood project in Liuzhou, the Baisha Bridge is expected to be completed and open to traffic in the middle to late part of this year. It will then become a major traffic artery connecting Liubei District and Hedong Area of the city, playing an important role in alleviating traffic pressure in Liuzhou. The Baisha Bridge also pioneers the information-based construction technology for complex steel bridges in China and has extensive reference and application value for similar bridge construction in the future.