At 8:00 on June 27, with the completion of the final concrete pour, the south main tower of the Shanghai-Nantong Yangtze River Bridge was successfully capped. The bridge is built by China Railway Corporation, designed by China Railway Major Bridge Engineering Group Co., Ltd. (MBEC) Survey and Design Institute, and constructed by China Railway Major Bridge Engineering Group. With this, both main towers of the bridge, each 330 m tall, have been completed.

　　The Shanghai-Nantong Yangtze River Rail-Road Bridge has a total length of 11,072 m, a main bridge length of 2,296 m, and a main span of 1,092 m. It is the largest-span cable-stayed bridge in China and the world's first rail-road cable-stayed bridge with a span exceeding one kilometer. As a control project for the entire Shanghai-Nantong Railway, the bridge integrates the functions of a national railway, an intercity railway, and an expressway. It serves as a common river crossing for the Shanghai-Nantong Railway, the Nantong-Suzhou-Jiaxing Intercity Railway, and the Xitong Expressway. It is designed with six expressway lanes on the upper deck and four railway tracks on the lower deck.

　　The bridge project uses about 480,000 t of steel, equivalent to the steel used in 12 "Bird's Nests" (National Stadiums); and 2.3 million m3 of concrete, equivalent to the amount used in 8 National Grand Theaters. The bridge adopts new materials such as Q500qE high-strength steel and 2,000 MPa parallel steel wire stay cables, which are used for the first time in China. Its enormous project scale, high construction difficulty, and numerous technological innovations have set multiple records in world and Chinese bridge construction, representing the highest level of bridge construction in China and the world today.

　　According to Ning Chaoxin, manager of the Second Division of the Shanghai-Nantong Yangtze River Bridge Project Department of China Railway Major Bridge Engineering Group, the main structures of a cable-stayed bridge include the cable tower, main girder, and stay cables. Among them, the cable tower is the key load-bearing structure of a cable-stayed bridge. The larger the span of a cable-stayed bridge, the taller the cable tower must be; only a taller cable tower can support an ultra-large-span main girder. To meet the navigation needs of the main Yangtze River channel in the area, the main span of the Shanghai-Nantong Yangtze River Bridge is designed at 1,092 m, and the main tower height has accordingly risen to 330 m, equivalent to a 110-story building. It is the tallest main tower in China and the tallest among rail-road bridges in the world.


　　The south main tower capped this time used a total of 73,000 cubic meters of concrete and 11,000 tons of steel rebar, a construction volume unprecedented in the history of world bridge construction. In addition to the enormous construction volume, the Shanghai-Nantong Yangtze River Bridge also has strict quality requirements. According to design requirements, once completed, the bridge must withstand Category 13 typhoons, magnitude 8 earthquakes, and collisions from 100,000-ton-class ships.

　　Due to the height and volume of the main tower, and to increase the transverse stiffness of the main tower, the main tower of the Shanghai-Nantong Bridge adopts a diamond-shaped reinforced concrete structure. Compared with inverted-Y, H-shaped, or A-shaped main tower structures, the diamond-shaped main tower has more complex structural and formwork systems and a longer construction period. Facing the complex structure and huge construction volume, China Railway Major Bridge Engineering Group gave full play to its professional advantages in bridge construction and successively overcame construction challenges such as giant caisson construction, mass concrete pouring, C60 high-performance concrete mix design and pumping, and crack resistance of C60 high-performance concrete for super-high bridge towers. By adopting the imported DOKA hydraulic climbing formwork system and rationally arranging large tower cranes, the construction time was greatly shortened, setting a new record for rapid construction of super-high main towers.

　　It is reported that the Shanghai-Nantong Yangtze River Bridge is expected to complete main span closure in September this year and side span closure in November. In January 2020, the bridge will carry out ballast construction on the railway deck and steel rail laying. Once completed and put into use, the bridge will become an important coastal railway and highway river crossing, and is of great significance for realizing the full connection of the coastal railway as soon as possible, further improving the regional transportation structure, enhancing the transport capacity of river crossings, and promoting the social and economic integration of the Yangtze River Delta.