The spring tide surges and the drive to forge ahead is in full swing. After the Spring Festival holiday, the construction site of Section 2 of the S24 Hangzhou-Hefei Expressway Wuhu Taishan Road Yangtze River Bridge and connecting approach project is bustling with activity: large tower cranes swing their massive arms, engineering vehicles shuttle back and forth without pause, and builders work intensively, seizing the golden spring construction season. At present, Wuhu's fourth Yangtze River crossing has entered a critical stage of vigorous and rapid construction, with all tasks advancing in an orderly manner and steady progress being made toward the goal of completion and opening to traffic in 2029.

As a key project under the Yangtze River Trunk Crossing Corridor Layout Plan (2020-2035), the project, once completed, will link the Wuhu Economic and Technological Development Zone, the Jiangbei New Area, and the Zhengpugang New Area of Ma'anshan, creating a golden expressway corridor between Anhui and Zhejiang. It is of great significance for implementing the development strategies of the Yangtze River Economic Belt and Yangtze River Delta integration, optimizing the layout of Anhui's river crossings, relieving expressway pressure, and driving development along the route.

The Yangtze River waters present complex hydrology and geology and strong current scouring, making underwater borehole formation for pile foundations highly difficult. Construction must also minimize impact on the navigation channel to the greatest extent possible, making the project highly challenging to build."The main pier piles of the project's north navigation channel bridge have a diameter of 2.8 m; the north bank right-side main pier piles are 90 m long and the left-side 112 m, while the south bank main pier piles are 78 m long. All are rock-socketed piles."Project Chief Engineer Guo Rui explained that to overcome the project's difficulties, the contractor Anhui Construction Engineering Highway and Bridge Construction Group Co., Ltd. planned ahead, upgraded the management level for main pier pile foundation construction, formulated special construction plans and organized reviews, introduced advanced intelligent construction machinery, and at the same time joined forces with the design unit, Tongji University, and others to carry out scientific research and technical breakthroughs, resolving construction bottlenecks.

Source:People's Daily Online - Anhui Channel