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Time-lapse footage shows China's colossal construction machine building a cross-sea railway bridge by moving huge concrete slabs

 China has unveiled a mega bridge-building machine that's expected construct high-speed railway overpasses faster and cheaper.

The Kunlun is capable of erecting a 1,000-tonne box girder - a support beam of a bridge - with a maximum span of 40 metres (131 feet), according to the government.

The mechanical giant is currently building a gigantic cross-sea bridge measuring 14.7 kilometres (9.1 miles) long in Fujian Province, south-eastern China.


The Kunlun is building the Meizhou Bay Bridge, which measures 9.1 miles long in eastern China

The Kunlun is building the Meizhou Bay Bridge, which measures 9.1 miles long in eastern China

The mega-machine is said to be capable of erecting a 1,000-tonne support beam of a bridge

The mega-machine is said to be capable of erecting a 1,000-tonne support beam of a bridge


Time-lapse footage released by the Kunlun's state-owned manufacturer shows the machine assembling and extending the Meizhou Bay Bridge from the land to the sea.


The Kunlun is seen carrying and picking up large sections of concrete before laying them onto the structure.

It is also filmed stretching itself from one bridge supporter to another over the sea to install chunks of the bridge surface.

The machine is developed and manufactured the China Railway Construction Corporation

The machine is developed and manufactured the China Railway Construction Corporation

It is expected to make the construction of high-speed railway bridges faster and cheaper

It is expected to make the construction of high-speed railway bridges faster and cheaper

The Kunlun is developed and manufactured by the China Railway Construction Corporation (CRCC), a large construction and engineering company directly supervised by China's State Council.

The firm claims the Kunlun transport-erect machine is the first of its kind in the world to be able to handle such heavy box girders.

It is expected to help the nation lower the cost of the construction of its high-speed railways and accelerate the expansion of the transport network, especially in remote areas.

The Kunlun can reduce about 20 per cent of girder erection costs and improves erection speed by 25 per cent, according to a release from the State Council. 

China's high-speed railway bridges had covered a distance of over 9,941 miles by early 2019

China's high-speed railway bridges had covered a distance of over 9,941 miles by early 2019

High-speed railway bridges are ubiquitous in China, covering a combined length of more than 16,000 kilometres (9,941 miles) as of April last year. 

One of the country's transport arteries, the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway, comprises 244 bridges over a distance of 1,318 kilometres (819 miles).

State experts say that high-speed railway bridges can help cut travel time, make train journeys more smooth, save land resources and improve the safety of railroads.

2 comments:

  1. the talking robot hear got it exactly right,"you do not have the tallent or technology to build a spaceship;BUT, you CAN build a giant machint that can build " well anything.

    ReplyDelete
  2. there goes OUR bullet trains and our money.

    ReplyDelete