China is intensifying its efforts to bolster intelligent construction equipment, so as to realize a leapfrog upgrade from manual construction to intelligent construction, while also enhancing work safety.

At a construction site in Nanjing, capital of East China's Jiangsu province, State builders from China Railway No 4 Engineering Group Co Ltd are using a cantilever intelligent bridge building machine on the Bid 6 section of the Nanjing-Huai'an Intercity Railway.

The smart bridge-building machine, independently developed by CREC4 Fourth Engineering, officially started work on the railway bridge traversing the Macha River on the 212-kilometer intercity railway — a high-speed railway that allows trains to run at 350 kilometers per hour between six stations — on May 28.

Zhan Guiyou, chief engineer of the Steel Structure Branch of CREC4 Fourth Engineering, said: "The smart machine is helping us cast three sections of concrete and steel continuous beams — extending for 68, 128 and 68 meters on the bridge, respectively, as these three sections cannot use precast continuous beams each extending for 31 meters."

He added that the country's first intelligent bridge building machine was also developed by Hefei, Anhui province-based CREC4 in late 2023, which, as the first generation of such equipment, can cast a 4.5-meter-long beam on site before being moved to the next stage for another beam by control staff.

"The equipment we are using now is second generation, which can cast a 6-meter-long beam on site," Zhan said.

He added that the smart equipment, costing some 3 million yuan ($417,540), is helping the constructors in four areas — safer construction, more efficient work, scientific management and being more environmentally friendly.

Liu Shaojun, deputy Party secretary of CREC4's 6th Bid Management Department on Nanjing-Huai'an HSR, said their move is in line with the country's overall arrangement on upgrading of equipment in the manufacturing sector.

The Government Work Report, delivered at the annual national legislative session in Beijing in March, has called for the transformation and upgrading of major technology, as well as large-scale renewal of equipment in the manufacturing sector. It also promised to expand effective investment and accelerate progress on a number of key projects.

Liu stressed that the intercity railway, which links Nanjing with prefecture-level city Huai'an, is an important component of the Yangtze River Delta intercity railway network and a major infrastructure support project in the Huaihe River Ecological Economic Belt.

With construction work commencing on Jan 4, 2023, the railway is expected to open to traffic in 2027, he said, noting that CREC4's No 6 bid extends for 26.58 kilometers — including two double-track super-large railway bridges — with a construction value of 2.675 billion yuan.

Zhan stressed that currently, over 10 sets of intelligent bridge building machines — all developed by CREC4 — are being used in various bridge-building work sites nationwide.

He added that as early as May 2021, CREC4 had developed the country's first intelligent track-laying facilities to lay 500-meter-long ballast-free track segments on the 246-km Zhangjiajie-Jishou-Huaihua railway in Central China's Hunan province, with an aim to speed up the country's intelligent construction work.

However, he added that "the country's intelligent construction equipment only accounts for less than 5 percent, and it is quite promising."

Hao Xing, an employee from CREC4 Fourth Engineering who supervises the intelligent bridge building machine on the railway bridge traversing the Macha River, said: "For smart equipment, the greatest two achievements for us are to ensure work safety, as there is no risk of equipment overturning, as well as cutting costs, as it needs only half the number of builders compared to traditional detachable-type bridge building machines."

hanjingyan@chinadaily.com.cn