Part of the massive Hong Kong Zhuhai-Macao Bridge (HZMB) project, Dragages-China Habour-VSL Joint Venture have been joining hands to design and construct this 9.4-km long dual three-land viaduct section Hong Kong Link Road. Upon the completion of this new land transport link, commuters will take only some 45 minutes to go to Zhuhai from the Hong Kong Airport – compared to 4 hours at present.

23^rd January marked the historical moment when Hong Kong Link Road connected to the Main Bridge on the Mainland side. Our client and supervising officer, together with our project team celebrated this important achievement.

Wes Jones (Managing Director of Dragages Hong Kong; Ronan Hasle (Area Director – Northeast Asia of VSL); together with Dragages-China-Harbour-VSL Joint Venture site representatives – Chan Man (Project Director), and Dominique Droniou (Deputy Project Director) officiated the ceremony with the Highways Department and AECOM.

Quote of Mr. Chan Man, Project Director

“We went through a tough journey to reach this important milestone. Complex geologies coupled with unstable weather were some of our key challenges. 196 piles were built within 2,000-metre area on the western side and more than 20 piles went more than 95 metres deep and some of them even went beyond 100 metres. Bed rocks for 36 piles were well beyond 100 metres deep and we adopted alternative shaft grouted friction piling method to overcome the conditions.

The 150-m long launching girder standing behind us which travelled 3,800 metres from March 2015 to December 2016 brought us record-breaking success. On average, we lifted 2.75 segments per calendar day and we reached up to 18 segments in one day. Such is a new record in Hong Kong and is probably a world record high.”

Highlights

• More than 20 piles went more than 95m deep
• Shaft grouted friction piling method to cope with difficult ground conditions – TECHNICAL FIRST in HK
• 5,714 pieces of precast segments in 250 different types
• Maximum height of one segment – 10m
• Maximum span – 180m, the world’s LONGEST span of a pre-cast segmental bridge
• Erected 18 segments in 1 day with 1 equipment – RECORD HIGH in HK