Shenzhen: China opened the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Link in Guangdong Province, south China, on Sunday, with trial operations scheduled to commence at 3 p.m.
The 24-kilometer passage starts at the Shenzhen airport interchange and connects with Ma’anshan Island in Zhongshan across the Pearl River. It cuts travel between Zhongshan and Shenzhen from two hours to approximately 30 minutes.
The megaproject consists of one underwater tunnel, two bridges and two artificial islands, making it one of the most difficult cross-sea cluster projects in the world. It also holds 10 world records.
As a core transportation project in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, the new link spans about 24 kilometers and has been labeled the “transportation backbone” of the area, shouldering the vital task of seamlessly connecting the urban centers on either side of the Pearl River Estuary.
The link is a key component of the national expressway network G2518, located approximately 30 kilometers north of the Humen Bridge and 31 kilometers south of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge. It connects these vital transportation arteries.
The link, along with existing structures like the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, will form a network of cross-sea and cross-river passages in the Greater Bay Area, boosting connectivity of the city cluster, said Deng Xiaohua, head of Guangdong Provincial Communications Group. With a span of 1,666 meters, the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Bridge boasts the world’s largest span for a fully offshore steel box girder suspension bridge, the world’s highest bridge deck, at 91 meters, and the highest navigation clearance for a sea bridge. The bridge is the world’s largest offshore suspension bridge anchor, with a single anchor’s concrete volume measuring approximately 344,000 cubic meters. It boasts the world’s highest wind resistance test speed for a suspension bridge, with a maximum flutter test wind speed of 83.7 meters per second. The mega construction also has the world’s largest steel bridge deck with hot-mix epoxy asphalt paving, covering an area of 378,800 square meters.
The link’s 6.8-kilometer-long undersea tunnel has a central pipe gallery that integrates facilities for power and water supply, drainage, firefighting, communication and intelligent control and serves as an emergency exit.
It is the world’s longest two-way, eight-lane immersed tube tunnel, spanning 5,035 meters and consisting of 32 tube sections and one final joint. It is also the world’s widest underwater steel shell-concrete immersed tube tunnel, with a standard tube section length of 165 meters, a width of 46 meters – 55.6 meters at its widest – and a height of 10.6 meters. In addition, the tunnel boasts the world’s largest single-volume cast for a steel-shell immersed tube using self-compacting concrete as single tube section concrete volume reaching 29,000 cubic meters, totaling 910,000 cubic meters. –The Daily Mail-CGTN news exchange item
