The final steel strand of stay cable C1 on the main tower at Pier 60 of the Hanjiang Grand Bridge on the Menghua Railway has been successfully threaded, marking the completion of all stay cable installation on the bridge.

The Hanjiang Grand Bridge on the Menghua Railway has a total length of 5,242 meters and is located over the Hanjiang River in Xiangyang City, Hubei Province, with a maximum span of 248 meters. The main bridge is a double-tower, double-cable-plane prestressed concrete girder low-tower cable-stayed bridge, adopting a structural system of tower-girder consolidation and pier-girder separation. The main girder is a prestressed concrete structure. The stay cables are arranged in two cable planes transversely and in a semi-fan pattern in elevation. Each cable tower is equipped with 9 pairs of stay cables, with a maximum single cable length of 269 meters. The stay cables pass through the cable towers via saddle structures and are symmetrically anchored to the girder on both sides.

The stay cables of the bridge use epoxy-coated high-strength steel strands. Splitter pipe sections are embedded in the concrete tower columns. The stay cable steel strands pass through the tower body via the splitter pipes, separating and arranging the cable strands. This overcomes the inherent defect of old-style saddles being prone to stress concentration, greatly improves the stress distribution within the tower, and effectively disperses and evenly transfers loads.

To ensure smooth stay cable installation, the project department carefully prepared a special construction plan for the stay cables, invited experts to review the special plan, and continuously optimized the construction plan. During construction, equal-value tensioning was adopted to ensure the uniformity of the force in the entire stay cable bundle; self-made cable traction equipment was used to ensure the traction and installation of the stay cables; and suspended operating platforms were used at the tower to greatly ensure the safety of cable installation.