World's longest sea bridge opens in China.

[Endymion]

World's longest sea bridge opens in China... (but don't think about crossing it on foot, it's the length of a marathon)


At 26.4 miles long, it is five miles further than the distance between Dover and Calais.

China has opened the world's longest cross-sea bridge - which stretches five miles further than the distance between Dover and Calais.

The Jiaozhou Bay bridge is 26.4 miles long and links China's eastern port city of Qingdao to the offshore island Huangdao.

The road bridge, which is 110ft wide and is the longest of its kind, cost nearly £1billion to build.



A bridge over misty waters: The immense £1billion structure which is supported by more than 5,000 pillars stretches for 24 miles along China's eastern port city of Qingdao to the offshore island Huangdao



Engineering feat: The vast bridge, the largest cross-ocean bridge in the world, cost £960million and took four years to build

Chinese TV reports said the bridge passed construction appraisals on Monday and it, along with an undersea tunnel, would be opened for traffic today.

It took four years to build the bridge, which is supported by more than 5,000 pillars across the bay, and it is almost three miles longer than the previous record-holder - the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway in Louisiana.





Lengthy: The bridge stretches into the distance further than the eye can see and right, the first few cars roll out across the surface



Open road: Drivers pass through the mist as they make some of the first passes over the 110ft wide bridge which is longer than any others of its kind



Flowers: The first vehicle runs into toll station to the applause of staff and passers-by after the bridge opened to traffic today



Musical mileage: A brass band plays on the sides of the road as flags and banners herald in the opening of the bridge



That structure features two bridges running side by side and is 23.87 miles long.

The three-way Qingdao Haiwan bridge is 174 times longer than London's Tower Bridge, spanning the River Thames, but cuts only 19 miles off the drive from Qingdao to Huangdao.

Two separate groups of workers have been building it from different ends of the structure since 2006.

After linking the two ends of the bridge on December 22, one engineer said: 'The computer models and calculations are all very well but you can't relax until the two sides are bolted together.



Don't keep me hanging: The suspension beams form an imposing sight as the reach through the clouds and look down upon colourful flags marking the bridge's grand opening



The long road home: The two roads which run alongside each other wind across The Jiaozhou Bay

'Even a few centimetres out would have been a disaster.'

The engineering feat will only hold the record as the longest sea bridge for a few years - it will be beaten by another Chinese bridge in the next decade.

Last December officials announced workers had begun constructing a bridge to link southern Guangdong province with Hong Kong and Macau.

Set to be completed in 2016, officials said the £6.5billion bridge will span nearly 30 miles.

It will be designed to cope with earthquakes up to magnitude 8.0, strong typhoons and the impact of a 300,000 tonne vessel.

But both structures will still be dwarfed by the longest bridge in the world, also in China.

The Danyang-Kunshan Grand Bridge is an astonishing 102 miles in length.



Record breaker: The Qingdao Jiaozhou bay bridge, spanning 26.4 miles between Qingdao and Huangdao, will open for traffic today



Impressive: Testing on the bridge was completed on Monday and it is expected to be opened to traffic for the first time today



A driver's dream: Twenty-four miles of fresh untouched tarmac stretch from Qingdao to Hungdao

[Pure Purple]

^ awesome Engineering.India is not behind..




BWSL reduces travel time between Bandra and Worli from 45–60 minutes during peak hours to 7 minutes.As of October 2009, BWSL had an average daily traffic of around 37,500 vehicles.
BWSL has the first cable-stayed bridges to be constructed in open seas in India. The pylons have an extremely complex geometry due to the geography and one of the longest spans of concrete deck attempted. Balancing this with the aesthetics of the bridge presented significant challenges for the project.
The superstructure of the approach bridges were the heaviest spans to be built in India. They were built using a span-by-span method using overhead gantry through a series of vertical and horizontal curves. The 20000 metric ton Bandra-end section of the cable-stayed deck is supported by stay cables within a very close tolerance of deviations in plan and elevation.[14]

Main bridge structure

The Bandra Worli Sea link, with Worli skyline

The bridge consists of twin continuous concrete box girder bridge sections for traffic in each direction. Each bridge section, except at the cable-stayed portion, is supported on piers typically spaced at 50 metres. Each section is meant for four lanes of traffic, complete with concrete barriers and service side-walks on one side. The bridge alignment is defined with vertical and horizontal curves. The bridge layout is categorized into three different parts:

• Part 1 - The north-end approach structure with Pre-Cast (PC) segmental construction.
• Part 2 - The Cable-Stayed Bridge at Bandra channel is with 50m -250m-250m-50m span arrangement and the Cable-Stayed Bridge at Worli channel is with 50m-50m-150m-50m-50m span arrangement.

The original plan estimated the cost at 6.6 billion (US$147.18 million) to be completed in 5 years.But the project was subject to numerous public interest litigations, with the 5 year delay resulting in the cost escalating to 16 billion (US$356.8 million),with the additional interest cost alone accounting for 7 billion (US$156.1 million).

IN INDIA ALWAYS project never completes within estimated cost.