Zhaohua Jialing River Bridge
Zhaohua Jialing River Bridge
昭化嘉陵江特大桥
Guangyuan, Sichuan, China
394 feet high / 120 meters high
1194 foot span / 364 meter span
2012
One of the 10 longest concrete arches in the world, the giant Zhaohua arch is very similar to the Wanxian arch bridge constructed across the Yangtze River at Wanzhou. Like the Wanxian span, the concrete ribs of the Zhaohua arch were erected around large steel pipes that reinforce the concrete. Each of the two giant ribs is composed of 6 tubes with 3 on the top and 3 on the bottom making a box 5.2 meters high by 7.2 meters wide. This intricate mesh of truss pipes makes the narrow bridge rib a spectacular site to see during the construction phase. The arch shape is not circular but follows a natural catenary curve. There are 13 spandrel openings in the main arch of 28 meters each. The approaches are composed of 8 beam spans of 30 meters on either side. Two 10 meter abutments add to the total length of 864 meters.
The bridge is located on the Guangnan expressway that is part of the Lanzhou to Haikou Expressway approximately 20 kilometers southwest of Guangyuan city.
A satellite image of the Zhaohua Jialing River Bridge during construction.
