On June 8, 2023, the main tower on the Sichuan bank of the Kahalo Jinsha River Bridge on the Xinshi Jinyang section of the Yibin Panzhihua Expressway (also known as the Yangtze River Expressway) was capped. This bridge is a key control project of the Yangtze River Expressway, and this important milestone is to press the acceleration button for the completion and opening of the entire line as scheduled.

The Kahalo Jinsha River Bridge is a Suspension bridge across the Jinsha River, with a total length of 1818.53m, including a main span of 1030m. It has two main towers on the Sichuan and Yunnan banks, 197m high, equivalent to 65 floors. The bridge takes the composite structure of steel tube concrete as the main tower of Suspension bridge, which is a 2-story portal structure, and is the world's first in the history of Suspension bridge. The bridge tower adopts the design concept of frame shear wall structure, using high-strength steel pipe concrete material to reduce cross-sectional size, reduce self weight, and improve seismic resistance.

The main tower on the bank of Sichuan is located in Kahalo Township, Leibo County, Liangshan Prefecture. The height from the bridge deck to the water surface is 110 meters, which is equivalent to a 36 story building height. It is divided into 32 sections for construction. Due to the complex and changeable geology on the bank, the project construction team has jointly carried out scientific and technological research to ensure the quality of the project. BIM technology has been used to build a three-dimensional model of the main tower, accurately control the structural size of each section, accurately guide the on-site construction, and ensure the smooth capping.

The completion of the Kahalo Jinsha River Bridge will greatly shorten the time and space distance between the residents on both sides of Sichuan and Yunnan, rewrite the history of cross-strait communication relying on ferries, promote the effective use of local characteristic resources, and help the revitalization of villages in Daliang Mountains and Xiaoliang Mountains.

The Yanjiang Expressway is currently the largest single investment highway project in the history of domestic highway construction, and it is planned to be completed and opened to traffic throughout the entire line by 2025. Editor/Xie Li