Guizhou on the way to a “Museum of Bridges”

Guiyang, China, March 9, 2023 (Archyde.com) /PRNewswire/ – A news report from Huanqiu.com:

“The ‘Award for Infrastructure’ goes to the Guizhou Pingtang Bridge project,” said the moderator at the Outstanding Structure Awards 2022 ceremony hosted by the International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering (IABSE). At that moment, Yang Jian, chief engineer of Guizhou Transportation Planning Survey & Design Academy Co., Ltd. might not contain his enthusiasm and cheered on stage.

However, it is not the first time that the Guizhou Bridge has received prestigious international awards. In fact, she won a “Grand Slam” of global bridge awards, including the Gustav Lindenthal Medal, known as the “Nobel Prize” in engineering. Since the Guizhou bridges have won international awards many times, the IBC judges even exclaimed when judging, “Here comes another bridge from Guizhou that will win the prize as soon as it appears.”

Surprisingly, this regular top award winner in bridge building lagged behind other countries. The difficulty of transportation has long been the bottleneck hampering the development of Guizhou. As the geographic center of southwest China, Guizhou has not fully realized its potential due to the mountainous landscape and insufficient transportation links, which local people are struggling with. A few decades ago, Guizhou began to engage in bridge construction, striving to gain experience from the advanced bridge projects of other countries such as Japan and Germany. However, due to its special karst landscape and the fact that more than 90% of the country’s surface is covered by mountains and hills, it might not learn much from its predecessors.

“From my earliest memory, my father has always been an infrequent guest in our home. My mother said he helped people build bridges and roads in areas with poor traffic. When I was little, I developed an inexplicable love for bridges, and I knew more regarding bridge building than anyone my age. The love of bridges has settled in my heart, and I chose to major in bridge construction to build my dreams on bridges,” said Liu Hao, engineer of Huajiang Bridge of Guizhou Bridge Construction Group.

Meanwhile, Guizhou has built nearly 30,000 bridges, including those under construction, and over 2,000 expressway bridges are still under construction. There are suspension bridges, cable-stayed bridges, arch bridges and girder bridges in Guizhou, covering almost all bridge types in the world. Known as the “Museum of Bridges,” Guizhou is home to five of the world’s top ten super bridges spanning mountains and valleys.

Meanwhile, the concept of environmental protection has been incorporated into the design and engineering of the bridge construction, which is another important factor in Guizhou’s recognition by the international community. In the transformation of Huayudong Bridge, Yang Jian’s team proposed the solution of “dismantling following construction”, which not only avoided the pollution and ecological damage caused by the explosion, but also realized the recycling of the old bridge the bridge is Guizhou’s first “basket-shaped” road bridge.

In addition, Guizhou has now introduced its bridge building technology and design to its peers at home and abroad. For example, Guizhou has completed the Yellow River Crossing project in Henan Province and is expected to build major projects in Mongolia and Georgia.

As Yang Jian said, “Every time I see our bridges, I’m happy as if I’m seeing my own child.” The Guizhou Bridge is now becoming a model in bridge construction, highlighting Guizhou’s role as an indispensable transportation hub in the world southwest region.It also helps Guizhou align with the Belt and Road Initiative worldwide, which promotes the concept of environmental protection in the new era and the idea that “building a road is the first step to prosperity.”

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