Key Bridge Closure Completes Qinghua Highway Main Line in Guangdong

According to China News Service, the main bridge of the Beijiang Extra-large Bridge on the Qingyuan-Qingxin to Guangzhou-Huadu Highway successfully closed on May 20, marking the full completion of the project’s main line. Constructed by China Railway Group, the milestone breakthrough lays a solid foundation for the highway’s official opening within 2026.

As a key project of Guangdong’s 14th Five-Year Plan infrastructure layout, the Qinghua Highway stretches approximately 54 kilometres. The route starts from Taihe Town in Qingyuan’s Qingxin District and terminates at Tanbu Town in Guangzhou’s Huadu District, with a designed driving speed of 120 kilometres per hour. The completed main line will optimise the high-speed road network in the northern Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

The Beijiang Extra-large Bridge serves as the project’s core control structure, featuring a total length of 1,440 metres and a main span of 360 metres. Adopting an elegant “Phoenix Spreading Wings” design concept, the bridge’s tower crowns mimic phoenix feather textures, delivering distinctive structural aesthetics and unique visual features that integrate engineering functionality with regional cultural elements.

The construction team overcame extremely complex geological conditions during development. The bridge site features intensive karst development, with deep and fractured rock layers and poorly filled caverns that carry high risks of water inrush and foundation collapse. The longest foundation pile of the main pier extends 102 metres, crossing multiple complex geological layers. A tailored one-pile-one-solution management model was adopted for refined construction control, achieving a 100% one-time hole-forming qualification rate for all 120 main pier foundation piles.

All four main towers are water-based structures standing nearly 150 metres high. The variable-curve tower design brings high precision challenges for linear control. Advanced technical systems including three-dimensional digital modelling, fully integrated hydraulic climbing formwork and intelligent monitoring equipment were deployed throughout the construction process, ensuring safe, stable and efficient progress across all working stages.

The opening of the Qinghua Highway will greatly shorten travel times between Qingyuan and Huadu. It strengthens the radiation capacity of the Greater Bay Area for peripheral cities and accelerates the integrated development process of Guangzhou and Qingyuan. The upgraded regional traffic network will optimise logistics efficiency, facilitate industrial linkage and support the long-term coordinated development of urban clusters in northern Guangdong.