Innovations accelerate railway building safety

Chinese railway builders are intensifying innovations in a bid to realize a leapfrog upgrade in the intelligent construction of railways and enhance work safety.

In Gansu province in Northwest China, State constructors helping to build the Tianshui-Longnan Railway have developed 10 process methods, raising construction efficiency by some 20 percent.

On June 13, the 16.27-kilometer Xujiaping Tunnel on the railway, which links the two prefecture-level cities of Tianshui and Longnan in Gansu, was fully dug through by builders from China Railway No 4 Engineering Group Co Ltd.

The 215.3-kilometer Tianshui-Longnan Railway is one of Gansu's key transport lines for its 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25), and also part of the country's New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor in western regions.

As the first line fully invested by Gansu, the single-track passenger and freight railway can allow trains to run at up to 160 kilometers per hour among its 18 stations, said Chen Chao, leader of the fifth subbranch of CREC4's project department for the No 1 section of Tianshui-Longnan Railway.

Chen said his fifth subbranch is in charge of a line of 17.97 kilometers, which covers the super-long Xujiaping Tunnel.

"The tunnel passes through fault fracture zones and shallow buried sections at multiple locations with a maximum burial depth of 600 meters, and crosses national highway G316 at a small burial depth," he said, adding that it is the most difficult task of the whole line as there are high safety risks.

Chen's subbranch has invested in more than 20 pieces of advanced equipment, such as hydraulic arch piers and intelligent lining trolleys, and developed 10 innovative methods to safeguard the tunnel's structural integrity and avoid any collapses while digging safely.

"We have made innovations to 10 methods, in a bid to bolster mechanized and information-based construction, thus leading to a construction efficiency improvement of about 20 percent," Chen said.

Meanwhile, in response to the complex geological conditions and construction challenges of the Xujiaping Tunnel, Chen's department has also established a "three-tier" management mechanism to coordinate multiple resources such as design, construction and monitoring, safeguarding work safety and ushering in intelligent construction.

Expert teams are regularly brought in to conduct risk assessments, and routine safety and quality inspections are put in place, while a smart construction-site management platform has been established, monitoring the on-site construction parameters in real time, so as to achieve early warning and rapid response to risks and hidden dangers, he said.

Zhu Guolin, Party secretary of the fifth subbranch of CREC4's project department for the railway's No 1 section, said their moves were in line with the country's overall arrangements.

The Government Work Report, delivered at the annual national legislative session in Beijing in March, called for the full leveraging of the pacesetting role of leading high-tech enterprises, as well as enhanced enterprise-led collaboration between industries, universities and research institutes. It also promised to expand effective investment and accelerate progress on a number of key projects.

"Since the start of our construction work, the 500-odd management personnel and frontline workers have been working to our best abilities on the construction site during the past 32 months, in strict accordance with our work plan," Zhu said.

"Next, we will carry out our follow-up construction work such as cable troughs and ballastless tracks, contributing to the building of benchmark projects in striving for a strong transport in the new era," he said.

Zhu noted that previously, there was no railway within a radius of 200 kilometers in the region, and upon completion of the line, the railway can link with the existing Tianshui-Pingliang Railway, Xi'an-Pingliang Railway and Lanzhou-Chongqing Railway, forming a new and convenient channel for passenger and freight exchanges in Gansu.