On April 9, the first pile foundation of the north main pier of the Three Gorges Bridge on the Yichang West Ring Expressway, constructed and managed by Hubei Jiaotou Shenyi Construction Management Co., Ltd. and built by CCCC Second Harbor Engineering Co., Ltd., was successfully poured.

The Yichang West Ring Expressway starts in Yiling District of Yichang City, crosses the Yangtze River, passes through Dianjun District, and ends at Gaojiayan Town in Changyang Tujia Autonomous County, with a total length of 46.997 kilometers. The Three Gorges Bridge is a key control project of the entire line, located at the Xiling Gorge mouth between the Three Gorges Dam and Gezhouba Dam, and is known as the "First Gateway of the Three Gorges." Its main span reaches 1,200 meters, making it currently the longest-span double-deck steel truss-UHPC deck slab composite girder suspension bridge in China. The first pile foundation of the north main pier poured this time is part of a separated pile cap with a group pile foundation, with a diameter of 3.4 meters and a length of 12 meters, involving high construction difficulty and stringent precision requirements.

The north main pier of the Three Gorges Bridge is located on a 70-degree steep rock wall with a narrow site. To ensure smooth pile foundation operations, the project team of CCCC Second Harbor Engineering Co., Ltd. carried out overall planning and scientific deployment, and over six months excavated a 1.3-kilometer-long construction access road on the 70-degree slope. At the same time, the team leveled the original hilltop and created a 5,138-square-meter construction site, creating favorable conditions for the entry of large equipment.

Because the bridge is adjacent to an ecologically sensitive area of the Yangtze River, environmental protection and construction constraints are extremely high. To minimize the impact on the local ecological environment, the construction team adopted the water-mill drilling process, which has advantages such as low disturbance, high precision, green environmental protection, and controllable safety. At the same time, a technical task force was set up to optimize the construction plan, adopt a refined management and control model, and strictly control each process to ensure that construction quality, safety, and environmental protection all meet standards. During the pouring process, the project team monitored key parameters such as concrete slump, temperature, and pouring speed in real time, and ultimately completed the first pile foundation pouring smoothly, laying a solid foundation for subsequent large-scale pile foundation construction.

The upper deck of the Three Gorges Bridge is a two-way eight-lane expressway, while the lower deck is arranged as a slow-traffic sightseeing system. After completion, the Yichang urban ring expressway will change from a "C" shape to an "O"-shaped closed loop, which is of great significance for optimizing the regional expressway network and river-crossing channel layout, improving the comprehensive transportation system of the Three Gorges, and serving the construction of the national major strategic project of the new Three Gorges water transport channel.

Source: China Daily