At around 10 a.m. on the 23rd, at the construction site of the No. 40 main pier of the Luzhou Tuojiang Grand Bridge on the Sichuan-Chongqing section of the Yunnan-Kunming High-Speed Railway, as the last batch of concrete was slowly poured into the foundation pit with pre-embedded steel reinforcement cages, the pile foundation, about 37 meters deep and 2.8 meters in diameter, was completed. This is also the first bridge pile foundation on the Sichuan-Chongqing section of the Yunnan-Kunming High-Speed Railway.

“The pile foundation construction for Pier No. 40 of the Tuojiang Bridge started on February 7. To ensure the node schedule was met, all engineering staff of the project department worked without rest during the Spring Festival, maintaining 24-hour shifts.” Yin Ze, the on-site chief technical engineer, told Luzhou Xiaobu that the first pile foundation pouring started at 3 a.m. on the 23rd and was successfully completed at 10 a.m.

Next, the construction workers will complete the pouring of 18 pile foundations in this over 500-square-meter site, striving to complete all pile foundations and pile caps before the Tuojiang River water level rises during this year's flood season.

Zhang Furong, head of the office of Section 4 of the Sichuan-Chongqing section of the Yunnan-Kunming High-Speed Railway, told Luzhou Xiaobu that the Tuojiang Grand Bridge is one of the “one bridge and one tunnel” control projects of the Sichuan-Chongqing section, and the two column piers on the Tuojiang riverbank are also key projects of the entire bridge.

More than 20 large mechanical devices and over 100 people working in 24-hour shifts have been invested in the foundation construction of the two bridge positions, advancing the construction of the Sichuan-Chongqing section with the determination of “starting work is a sprint.”

At the construction site, two municipal sewage suction trucks are on standby to promptly absorb the mud and sewage generated during concrete pouring, preventing them from flowing into the Tuojiang River and causing pollution. Meanwhile, workers are pouring retaining walls on the slopes outside the piers to prevent gravel and soil from entering the Tuojiang River during the foundation construction.

Pile foundations and pile caps of bridge towers on both banks to be completed before flood season

The main bridge of the Tuojiang Grand Bridge is located northwest of Luzhou, crossing the Tuojiang Rare Fish Protection Area and the Xiamen-Chengdu Expressway. The entire bridge is a structural system connecting tower-type piers and continuous beams.

Two domestic firsts

Among them, the main towers on both sides of the Tuojiang River adopt a double-column V-shaped bridge tower, with an overall straight and tall shape, which is the first application among similar railway bridge types in China;

The bridge deck, combined with the V-shaped bridge tower, adopts a spatial cable plane of stay cables, also the first among similar railway bridge types in China.

According to Yan Mingsai, executive deputy manager of the Yunnan-Kunming High-Speed Railway Project Management Department of China Railway No. 4 Engineering Group, the main bridge of the Luzhou Tuojiang Grand Bridge crosses the Tuojiang River. The bored pile construction for the No. 40 and No. 41 main piers is located on the riverbanks of the Tuojiang River. After the flood season arrives, both banks will be submerged. To ensure the successful completion of the bridge construction nodes, the bored piles and pile caps must be completed during the dry season.

Luzhou East and Luzhou Stations to be set up within Luzhou

The Yunnan-Kunming High-Speed Railway is a “eight vertical and eight horizontal” high-speed railway corridor in the national “Medium and Long-Term Railway Network Plan,” an important part of the Beijing-Kunming passenger transport corridor, and a key project of the national “Hundred Transportation Poverty Alleviation Projects.” It is a high-speed passenger dedicated railway mainly serving long-distance passengers while also accommodating intercity passenger flow.

The Sichuan-Chongqing section has a total length of 292.15 km, with Luzhou East and Luzhou Stations set up within Luzhou. It is designed for a speed of 350 km/h and constructed as a new double-track passenger dedicated line.