On July 30, the main structure pre-assembly of the ship reception chamber of the ship lift for the Guangxi Baise Water Conservancy Hub Navigation Facilities Project, led by Yunnan Communications Investment Group, was successfully completed.

As the first large-scale ship lift project in China's transportation industry, the Baise ship lift is a key project for Yunnan to achieve direct river-sea navigation. The ship reception chamber serves as the "car" of the ship lift "elevator" that carries vessels for vertical lifting, and the machining precision of its segments and the "exam" verification of its assembly are directly related to the construction of the entire ship lift system.

The structural dimensions (length × width × height) of the Baise ship lift's ship reception chamber are 144.0 m × 17.2 m × 11.0 m, with its length and height exceeding those of the Three Gorges ship lift chamber (132.0 m × 23.0 m × 10.0 m), currently the largest in the world. The effective water area dimensions within the chamber (length × width × water depth) are 130.0 m × 12.0 m × 3.9 m, capable of accommodating two 1,500-tonne vessels simultaneously and achieving one-time lifting. The chamber weighs 2,900 tonnes deadweight, 3,500 tonnes including equipment, and with the water body and vessels inside weighing 7,200 tonnes, the total lifting weight of the chamber reaches 10,700 tonnes, second only to the Three Gorges ship lift (total lifting weight 15,500 tonnes).

The Baise ship lift's ship reception chamber is precisely assembled from 56 large steel box structural segments, including 30 main longitudinal girder segments, 17 bottom deck segments, 8 chamber head segments, and 1 central electrical room segment. To ensure "millimeter-level" assembly precision, under the overall deployment of Baise Company, the manufacturerestablished a three-level quality control network of "three-inspection system + supervision acceptance + digital re-verification," relying onCNC plasma cutting machinesto achieve automated component processing. Meanwhile, BIM 3D modeling technology was used to simulate the docking paths of the 56 segments, and high-precision measuring equipment was used for real-time monitoring and tracking calibration, controlling the docking error of pre-assembled nodes to within 2 millimeters.

The successful completion of this ship reception chamber pre-assembly has laid a solid foundation for the construction of the Baise ship lift. NextBaise Company will work together with all participating units to continue concentrating on key challenges, conduct comprehensive inspection, verification and refined improvement of the ship reception chamber according to the predetermined plan, and ensure the successful completion of subsequent ship lift construction tasks.