Sutong Yangtze River Bridge, Cable-stayed bridge in Jiangsu Province, China
The Sutong Yangtze River Bridge is a cable-stayed bridge with two 306-metre inverted Y-shaped concrete towers standing in the water, each formed of two vertical legs joined near the top. From the upper section of each tower, thin white cables fan diagonally down to a flat steel box-girder deck 41 metres wide, which curves gently across the river and continues onto thick vertical concrete piers. The main span measures 1,088 metres and the total bridge length is 8,206 metres.
Construction began in June 2003 and the two halves were joined in June 2007, nearly a year ahead of the original schedule. The bridge opened to traffic on 25 May 2008 and was officially inaugurated on 30 June 2008, at a cost of about US$1.7 billion. It held the record for the longest cable-stayed main span, 1,088 metres, from 2008 until 2012.
The bridge represents a major achievement in Chinese civil engineering and earned the 2010 Outstanding Civil Engineering Achievement award from the American Society of Civil Engineers for its innovative design and execution.
The bridge carries vehicular traffic on the G15 Shenyang-Haikou Expressway between Nantong and Changshu, reducing travel time from Shanghai to Nantong from four hours by ferry to approximately one hour by road.
The two main towers feature an inverted Y-shaped reinforced concrete framework supporting steel box girders with internal diaphragms, and the bridge maintains a clearance of 62 meters above the Yangtze River for maritime traffic.
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