The Sidu River Bridge (Siduhe Bridge, 四渡河特大桥) is a
suspension bridge
A suspension bridge is a type of bridge in which the deck (bridge), deck is hung below suspension wire rope, cables on vertical suspenders. The first modern examples of this type of bridge were built in the early 1800s. Simple suspension bridg ...
crossing the valley of the
Sidu River near
Yesanguan in
Badong County
Badong County () is a county located in western Hubei province, People's Republic of China, bordering Chongqing municipality to the west. It is the northernmost county-level division under the administration of Enshi Prefecture. The Yangtze River ...
of the
Hubei Province
Hubei (; ; alternately Hupeh) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, and is part of the Central China region. The name of the province means "north of the lake", referring to its position north of Dongting Lake. The prov ...
of the
People's Republic of China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
. The bridge was designed by CCSHCC Second Highway Consultants Company, Limited. and built at a cost of 720 million yuan (approximately US$100 million).
[ Wang 2009, p.65. "The bridge cost the Chinese government 720 million yuan (roughly U.S.$100 million). The design was engineered by CCSHCC, Second highway Consultants Company, Limited;which is based in Wuhan, China."] It opened to traffic on November 15, 2009.
Geography
The bridge is part of the new
G50 Huyu Expressway that parallels
China National Highway 318
China National Highway 318 (G318) runs from Shanghai to Zhangmu on the China-Nepal border. It is the longest China National Highway at in length and runs west from Shanghai towards Zhejiang, Anhui, Hubei, Chongqing, Sichuan, and ends in Tibet Au ...
, an east-west route between
Shanghai
Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...
and
Chongqing
Chongqing ( or ; ; Sichuanese dialects, Sichuanese pronunciation: , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ), Postal Romanization, alternately romanized as Chungking (), is a Direct-administered municipalities of China, municipality in Southwes ...
,
crossing the wide belt of mountains that separate the
Sichuan Basin
The Sichuan Basin (), formerly transliterated as the Szechwan Basin, sometimes called the Red Basin, is a lowland region in southwestern China. It is surrounded by mountains on all sides and is drained by the upper Yangtze River and its tributa ...
from the lowlands of eastern Hubei. The
Yangtze River
The Yangtze or Yangzi ( or ; ) is the longest list of rivers of Asia, river in Asia, the list of rivers by length, third-longest in the world, and the longest in the world to flow entirely within one country. It rises at Jari Hill in th ...
pierces the same mountain belt to the north, forming the famous
Three Gorges
The Three Gorges () are three adjacent gorges along the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, in the hinterland of the People's Republic of China. With a subtropical monsoon climate, they are known for their scenery. The "Three Gorges Scenic A ...
. The
Yiwan Railway, completed in 2010 and running parallel to the highway, has been described as China's most difficult to build and most expensive (per km) rail line.
The bridge spans a valley of the Sidu River (a left tributary of the
Qingjiang River
The Qing River () is a right (southern) tributary of the Yangtze River (Chang Jiang) in Hubei province of south-central China.,
Geography
Course
The Qing River Headwaters originate at Tenglong Cave (Teng Long Dong) near Lichuan City, in Hubei ...
), and superseded the
Royal Gorge Bridge
The Royal Gorge Bridge is a tourist attraction near Cañon City, Colorado within Royal Gorge Bridge and Park, a 360-acre (150 ha) amusement park located along the edge of the Royal Gorge around both ends of the bridge. The bridge crosses th ...
and the
Beipan River Guanxing Highway Bridge
The Beipan River Guanxing Highway Bridge or Beipanjiang River 2003 Bridge is a 366-metre-high suspension bridge on the Guanxing Highway near Xingbei Town (Xinbeizhen), Zhenfeng County, Guizhou Province, China. The bridge has a span length of 388& ...
as the
highest bridge in the world until it in turn was surpassed by the
Duge Bridge in 2016.
Design and construction
![Siduhe Bridge-1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/40/Siduhe_Bridge-1.jpg)
The bridge's design includes H-shaped towers, a truss-stiffened main span, and unsuspended side spans.
The Warren-type trusses were constructed in 71 sections with the largest section weighing . The trusses are tall and wide.
The height measurement from the bottom of the gorge has been reported as by Eric Sakowski, by Chongxu Wang, and by Yinbo Liu.
[It is not clear that these sources are measuring to the same point on the bridge. Some may be measuring from the bottom of the gorge to the top of the towers, explaining some of the discrepancies in the numbers reported. In addition to the numbers reported by Sakowski, Liu, and Wang, there are additional less-reliable sources on the internet that report the height at 560 m.]
The first part of the suspension cable installed, a rope known as the ''pilot cable'', was the first-ever to be placed using a rocket. Conditions at the bridge's location would not allow the use of boats or helicopters, which have previously been used to string the first cable. The rockets carried the pilot cables across on October 6, 2006 and resulted in time and cost savings.
[ Wang 2009, p. 80. "The installation of the main cables began with the placement of a pilot cable." "Conventional methods for placing the pilot cable ... could not be used." "An innovative cable placement method using a military rocket was developed." "On October 9, 2006, two rockets were fired to take the two 1,300 m ropes made of ]chinlon
Chinlone ( my, ခြင်းလုံး, ), also known as caneball, is the traditional, national sport of Myanmar (Burma). It is non-competitive, with typically six people playing together as one team. The ball used is normally made from handwov ...
, a highly elastic yarn, over the canyon, a distance of roughly 1,100 m." "The entire process was completed in a short period—perhaps 10.00 seconds—and the cost savings were significant."
The main suspension cables are made of 127 parallel wire strands bundled into a hexagonal shape (127 is the sixth
centred hexagonal number
In mathematics and combinatorics, a centered hexagonal number, or hex number, is a centered figurate number that represents a hexagon with a dot in the center and all other dots surrounding the center dot in a hexagonal lattice. The following ...
). Each strand is made of 127 wires (also making a hexagonal shape so that there is a total of 16,129 wires in each of the two main suspension cables). Each cable can hold .
[ Wang 2009, p. 79. "Prefabricated Parallel Wire Strand (PPWS) was used for the main cable. Each main cable consisted of 127 parallel wire strands arranged in a hexagonal shape, and each strand is made from 127 galvanized high-strength steel wires, each 5.1 mm in diameter, also arranged in a hexagonal shape. The maximum tension force that the cable can bear is 191,960 kN."]
Notes
References
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External links
*{{Commons category-inline, Siduhe Bridge
Suspension bridges in China
Bridges in Hubei
Bridges completed in 2009
2009 establishments in China
Badong County