Stonecutters Bridge crosses the Rambler Channel at the entrance to one of the world's busiest container ports. The Maeda-Hitachi-Yokogawa-Hsin Chong joint venture began construction in April 2004 for Hong Kong's Highways Department, erecting a 1,018-metre main span — the world's second-longest cable-stayed span when it opened in 2009 — directly above a 900-metre-wide channel that could not stop moving. The bridge forms the centrepiece of Route 8, connecting Tsing Yi and Sha Tin, and straddles the channel at the entrance to the Kwai Chung container terminals — a live commercial artery the JV could not close for its own convenience.
Every main-span steel segment came in by barge, and every barge had to occupy that live shipping lane to make its lift. Marine-traffic simulations and traffic-control planning were undertaken with the relevant marine authorities before construction began, and each barge was GPS-positioned and held on station by thrusters, without anchoring in the channel.
The lift method used high-capacity winches rather than strand jacks because they were faster — segments of around 500 tonnes were lifted in under 40 minutes, minimising the time each barge held its position in the channel.
Independent Checking Engineer Tony Gee reviewed the contractor's erection proposals and temporary works, including the deck-lifting equipment and falsework, using a stage-by-stage finite element analysis to confirm each lift's effect on the permanent structure.
The lifting programme ran through two typhoon seasons, one of them particularly active, requiring contingencies at every stage.
The channel did not close for the bridge. The bridge had to fit around the channel.
Every lift, then, carried two clocks running at once: the physical time to land a segment, and the time the barge occupied the controlled lifting area. The erection method had to account for both.