On January 16, with the completion of pouring for the final closure segment, the Lugou River Grand Bridge of the Chongqing-Hunan (Yuxiang) Double-Track Expressway project, constructed by China Construction Railway Investment Group, was successfully connected through. The successful completion of the Lugou River Grand Bridge project (hereinafter referred to as the Lugou River Grand Bridge) has laid a solid foundation for the official opening of the Yuxiang Double-Track Expressway.

It is reported that the Lugou River Grand Bridge is located in Dongwenquan Town, Banan District. It is the grand bridge with the largest construction volume, the greatest construction difficulty, the highest technical level, and the most reinforced concrete consumables in the entire Yuxiang Double-Track Expressway construction. It is Asia's ** seven-span continuous rigid-frame bridge with pier heights exceeding 190 meters. Pier No. 7 on the left carriageway is 192 meters high, making it the ** high pier column within the Yuxiang Double-Track Expressway project section.

During the project construction, ordinary climbing formwork could not meet the technical requirements for the 192-meter-high pier. China Construction Railway Investment Group, together with the China Construction Advanced Technology Research Institute, jointly developed a new-generation "pier-building machine" tailored for the 192-meter pier pouring project. Compared with traditional climbing formwork construction, it features more standardized components, lighter structures, and more efficient formwork, achieving a fastest rate of one formwork cycle every 4 days and a single-day output exceeding 1.13 meters, laying a solid foundation for the smooth completion of the bridge.

At the same time, compared with common rigid-frame bridges with spans between 60 and 100 meters, the Lugou River Grand Bridge has seven consecutive spans, of which five main spans all reach 180 meters, making construction extremely difficult. In response, during construction the project team scientifically formulated a construction plan and adopted the "traveler cantilever pouring method" for construction, relying on the movement of the "traveler" to allow the bridge to "grow" and extend in the air. The total cantilever length reaches 82 m, the side-span cast-in-place section is 4.51 m long, and both the side-span closure segment and the mid-span closure segment reach 2 m, successfully solving the problem of long-span bridge construction and achieving the milestone goal of bridge completion.

Qin Wenfu, a villager from Chaoyang Village, Dongquan Town, Banan District, who came to watch, was especially excited. He said: "I live in the village right next to the bridge. From pile driving to completion, I watched the bridge being built, and I am very happy. After this expressway opens, more and more tourists will come to visit areas near our village."

The Yuxiang Expressway is a section of the Baotou-Maoming Expressway G65, the 7th longitudinal line of the national expressway network's "71118" plan. It is also one of the important radial lines in Chongqing's planned "Three Ring Roads, Twelve Radials, and Seven Link Lines" main skeleton expressway network, and is the main corridor from Chongqing to the southeastern coast.

As the single expressway project with the largest investment currently in Chongqing, the Yuxiang Double-Track Expressway has a total length of 280.26 kilometers. It is a capacity-expansion route of the already-built Yuxiang Expressway and a major transportation artery connecting Chongqing to Hunan.

After the Yuxiang Double-Track Expressway project is completed and opened to traffic, it will effectively alleviate traffic pressure on the existing Yuxiang Expressway and effectively enhance the corridor's traffic capacity. It will play an important role in further developing the tourism resources of Chongqing's main urban area and the southeastern Chongqing area, and in promoting sustained and rapid economic and social growth. It is also of great significance for supporting the construction of the Chengdu-Chongqing economic circle and accelerating the building of an international comprehensive transportation hub.