First concrete pour completed for main span of Xi’an Donglin Road swivel cable-stayed bridge

The first-section concrete pour for the main bridge of the swivel cable-stayed bridge spanning the Xikang Railway on the Xi'an East Third Ring Road-Lintong Expressway (Donglin Road) was completed on Sept 13. The project, undertaken by China Railway Seventh Group Co Ltd, reached a breakthrough that officially launched the girder construction phase of the landmark bridge.

The bridge adopts a single-pylon, single-plane concrete cable-stayed design with two 158-meter spans and a fixed-pylon-pier, separated-beam structural system. The bridge has an overall length of 319.7 meters, a pylon height of 73 meters above the bridge deck, and a swivel weight of 42,000 tons.

The newly constructed first beam section measures 26.4 meters long and 39.4 meters wide. Built with a single-box five-cell inclined web girder section, the segment required 1,614.5 cubic meters of concrete, which took 32 consecutive hours of non-stop pouring.

The construction faced a number of technical difficulties, including large structural size, multiple box chambers, steep longitudinal gradients, densely distributed steel bars, and complex prestressed pipeline layouts. Key challenges included pouring sequence and rhythm control, inclined web concrete vibration, concrete anti-segregation treatment, and overall bridge linearity adjustment.

To tackle the technical hurdles, the project team conducted thorough pre-construction technical and safety briefings, allocated personnel, machinery, and raw materials, and optimized detailed construction plans and on-site operating procedures.

During the pouring process, strict whole-process management was implemented, covering factory concrete quality inspection, support frame monitoring, standardized vibration operation, and real-time temperature surveillance. Full-time staff members were stationed on site for round-the-clock supervision to ensure construction safety and structural quality.

A key project linking Xi'an's main urban area with the Lintong National Tourist Resort, the Donglin Road expressway is being built to a two-way, six-lane standard with a design speed of 80 kilometers per hour.

Upon completion, it will become Xi'an's second major eastward corridor, greatly shortening the spatial and temporal distance between the main urban area and Lintong district, alleviating traffic congestion in eastern Xi'an, and injecting strong impetus into the optimization of the city's spatial layout and high-quality regional economic development.