Crossing the Yangtze

The Nanjing Second Yangtze River Bridge, which links two parts of the city of Nanjing, features the first use of an epoxy asphalt deck pavement in China and one of the longest cable-stayed spans in the world. The project, with a total length of about 12 km, consists of two crossings connected by a roadway section on an island. The 2,172 m long northern crossing is a prestressed-concrete box girder with three navigation spans of 165 m each, which were erected using a cast-in-place balanced cantilever method. The main section of the 2,958 m long southern crossing consists of a 1,238 m long cable-stayed bridge. Its 628 m long center span is the longest cable-stayed bridge span in China. Construction of the underwater foundations of the two 196 m tall diamond-shaped concrete towers employed two double-walled steel caissons. The foundation work was done under an extremely tight schedule to ensure completion prior to the flood season. The superstructure is a steel box girder with an orthotropic deck. Most of the girders 93 segments were erected by the balanced cantilever method. To suppress rain-wind vibration, a pair of hydraulic dampers was attached to each cable, and later the cables were wrapped with a polyethylene spiral rib. The search for a high-performance, low-maintenance durable pavement system was an important issue. A comprehensive testing program confirmed that epoxy asphalt pavement would meet the stringent performance standards stipulated in the design criteria. A major advantage of the epoxy asphalt pavement is the speed with which it can be applied; the total pavement work took just 12 working days. The bridge opened to traffic in March 2001.