Super Equipment Powers a Super Project

Xihoumen Rail-Road Bridge

  A key control project of the entire Ningbo-Zhoushan Railway line

Setting multiple world firsts and world records

Sunward SWDM1280 Super Rotary Drilling Rig

Building a rock-solid foundation for the bridge

On August 13, good news came from the construction site of the Xihoumen Rail-Road Bridge of the Ningbo-Zhoushan Railway undertaken by China Railway Major Bridge Engineering Group. Pile No. 15 of the No. 5 main tower pier, constructed by the Sunward SWDM1280 super rotary drilling rig, after nearly 20 hours of continuous pouring of approximately 2,928 m³ of concrete, was finally successfully completed as the project's first pile with a diameter of 6.3 meters, setting a world record for hole and pile formation at 6.3 meters in diameter by a rotary drilling rig and laying a solid foundation for the smooth progress of subsequent works.

The first pile of Pier No. 5, Pile No. 15, completed in this pouring, belongs to the main tower pier works of the Xihoumen Rail-Road Bridge of the Ningbo-Zhoushan Railway, with a pile diameter of 6.3 meters, a pile length of 84 meters, a construction depth of 106 meters, and an end-bearing pile type. The pile has relatively hard geological conditions, with slightly weathered rhyolite reaching 22.9 meters and micro-weathered rhyolite reaching 7.5 meters, making drilling difficult. The pile was officially spudded on July 5 by the Sunward SWDM1280 rotary drilling rig using a five-stage drilling process, during which a 6.8-meter steel casing was driven 8 meters into the bare rock surface of the seabed. The drilling process was stable and efficient, and the hole formation for the first 6.3-meter pile of Pier No. 5 was completed first on July 19.

As a leading enterprise in the comprehensive field of piling machinery, Sunward adheres to the concept of pioneering innovation and actively responds to national, market, and customer needs by developing various high-end, specialized, and complete-set innovative products. The Xihoumen Bridge project is large in scale, novel in bridge structure, and high in technological content. It is a super sea-crossing project that challenges limits, with site conditions featuring "strong winds, high waves, deep water, rapid currents, and bare rock." It is precisely this super project, the Xihoumen Rail-Road Bridge of the Ningbo-Zhoushan Railway, that drove the development of the Sunward SWDM1280 super rotary drilling rig.

The SWDM1280 rotary drilling rig can achieve a maximum hole diameter of 7 meters and a maximum hole depth of 176 meters. Leveraging Sunward's strong pioneering R&D and innovation capabilities, and targeting aspects such as the stability and drilling process of ultra-deep, large-diameter hard rock drilling, the ease of assembly and disassembly of super-large equipment, and operational reliability, it has developed more than ten innovative technologies, including a high-inertia rotary platform braking force enhancement technology, a five-key high-strength large-diameter drill pipe, a large-diameter long-length single-layer rope-winding drum, and a symmetrical power pin modular chassis. With these innovative technologies, the SWDM1280 rotary drilling rig has demonstrated stable, reliable, and efficient performance in the construction of Pier No. 6 previously and the current No. 5 main tower pier of the Xihoumen Rail-Road Bridge, earning full recognition from the contractor China Railway Major Bridge Engineering Group and the construction contractor Wuhan Lecheng.

In recent years, the piling machinery industry has been in a period of adjustment, but there is no off-season for R&D. Sunward has always adhered to the concept of pioneering innovation, increased investment in innovative R&D, and developed a batch of super equipment such as super static pile drivers, super pile frames, and super rotary drilling rigs, which have been applied in super projects at home and abroad such as the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Link, the Yanji Yangtze River Bridge, and the China-Thailand Railway, leading the industry's upgrading and development.

In the future, Sunward will further increase R&D investment. Under the concept of engineering driving equipment development and equipment supporting engineering realization, it will focus on the scenario requirements of special strata, special environments, and special pile types in pile foundation construction. Through collaborative innovation in engineering, construction methods, and equipment, it will continuously lead the piling machinery industry toward complete-set and specialized development.