On September 9, the Pier 3 bridge body of the Yan’an East Ring Expressway Nanniwan Airport Bridge, designed by China Railway Liuyuan Group and constructed by China Railway Seventh Group under CREC, successfully completed its rotation, setting world records for the highest, heaviest, and longest span upper turntable bridge project.
The Nanniwan Airport Bridge is a key control project of the Yan’an East Ring Expressway, with a total length of 638 meters, crossing the Baoxi Railway, the under-construction Xi’an–Yan’an High-speed Railway, and three highways. The section crossing the railway (Pier 3 rotation project) has a span of 2×70 meters with a T-shaped rigid frame, a rotation angle of 77.49 degrees, a bridge height of 67 meters, a deck width of 33.6 meters, and a single thin-walled hollow pier height of 54.5 meters. The total rotating weight is 25,000 tons—equivalent to controlling a bridge body weighing about three Eiffel Towers at the height of a 23-story building—making it an extremely challenging engineering feat.
The Yan’an East Ring Expressway has a total length of 56 kilometers and a roadbed width of 26 meters, built to a four-lane expressway standard with a designed speed of 100 km/h. It is an important component of Shaanxi Province’s highway network. Once completed, it will effectively connect Yan’an New District with Nanniwan Airport, divert 70% of transit vehicles, improve regional road network efficiency, and play a significant role in promoting the economic development of northern Shaanxi and revitalization of revolutionary old areas.
