Sutong Bridge, China manufactures' confidence

--The story of SANY's equipments told by project manager of CSNEC

On June 18^th of 2007, the Sutong Bridge that connecting two cities Su Zhou and Hang Zhou completed ahead of schedule. The Sutong Bridge is a cable-stage bridge of the longest span in the globe.

As the builder of this bridge, the project manager of China Communications 2nd Navigational Bureau 2nd Engineering Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as CSNEC), Mr. Liu Xianpeng was very excited. He told us a story of SANY’s equipments, of China manufactures' confidence.　　

Mr. Liu took SANY's trailer-mounted concrete pump as an example to express his opinions. The geographical location of this bridge is very special, with complex geological, climatic and hydrological conditions. So this is really a big and complex construction project that should solved ten significant technologies like structural system, wind resistance, earthquake resistance etc. Especially the two main piers is 306m high each that is unprecedented in world's bridge history.  

Mr. Liu said " Except technologies, equipments is very important to build such a big bridge." Concrete pumps are essential to bridgehead construction, however a mothball concrete pump had not applied to construction ever since it was transferred to the job site. Mr. Liu Xianpeng explained that because the main concrete pump of SANY was stable, the mothball one was no need.

The bridgehead construction was divided into 68 phases, 4.5m high each. The concrete pumps should deliver hyperviscosity concrete one phase by one phase till more than 300m high. The concrete placement of one phase should consume 7-8 hours, the placement quality would be affected if there is malfunctions of equipments happened. Therefore, as a routine, there should be one concrete pump working and another one being standby. According to schedule, CSNEC planed to purchase the foreign concrete pumps. However Liu Xianpeng considered that the foreign products have no precedent of pumping No.50 concrete to tower of 300m high, and the home products are as good as foreign counterparts, why we have a try? So he insisted to buy a China concrete pump and a foreign one. This China concrete pump is exactly from SANY.

" SANY Heavy Industry knows very well that the quality is significant to Sutong Bridge. It prepare a mothball concrete pump besides the bought one" Mr. Liu Xianpeng told journalist. SANY tailored two super-high pressure concrete pump of 90CH2122D for Sutong Bridge. In October of 2005, these two SANY's concrete pumps entered the construction site of main piers to compete with foreign counterparts.

During the construction, SANY's concrete pump adopted two diesel engines to drive two pumps respectively in one machine. The two pumps are able to work simultaneously. When malfunctions happened with one pump, the other one could continue working by 50% of output, which would avoid loses induced by construction interrupt. This kind of design could improve efficiency greatly and guarantee the stability.

The actual performance of SANY's concrete pumps made Mr. Liu Xianpeng really excited. In September of 2006, SANY's super-high pressure concrete pumps successfully delivered C50 concrete to 306m high, which made a world's record of the highest concrete delivery for main pier in world's bridge history. Mr. Liu said proudly " During the construction process, the foreign equipments valued 2.6 million yuan being downtime often. However SANY's equipments with much lower price have less malfunctions. And the mothball concrete pump of SANY has not be used once."

Like CSNEC, other contractors of Sutong Bridge are full of confidence to SANY's concrete pumps too. Since the year 2003, there are more than 30 concrete pumps of SANY joining the Sutong Bridge construction. SANY's concrete pumps accounted for 80% of concrete pumps that on the job site.

The establishment of Sutong Bridge is one important step for China's growing up from a big country to a strong country in bridge field. As the participator of Sutong Bridge construction, Mr. Liu Xianpeng expressed his feeling that " China's path to a strong country relies on the modernization of engineering industry ultimately."

Sutong Bridge in construction, the 306m piers casted by SANY's concrete pumps