Indian Railways completes the arch bottom of Chenab bridge

The World’s highest Bridge called the “Chenab Bridge” has completed a major milestone after the engineers completed the arch bottom of the bridge on March 14, 2021. The bridge is being called as the Indian Railways’ engineering marvels. The arch upper of the Chenab bridge is in making and will be completed soon.

Highlights

The special bridge is being built across river Chenab. The river is having a central span of 467 metre. It is being built at the height of 359 metre from river bed. The bridge is even higher than the Qutub Minar in Delhi which is 72 metres in height and the Eiffel Tower in Paris which is having the height of 324 metres. The maximum design wind speed of the bridge is 266 kmph.

How the bridge is being constructed?

The arch of the bridge across the river is being built by novel method of construction using the cable car. Two cable cars which are having the capacity of 20 MT and 37 MT work in tandem on cables which are connected to specially constructed high towers called Pylons. The two towers are located at the Kauri end and the Bakkal end across the gorge. The special bridge will be using 327051 MT structural steel. Presently, the excavation & earthwork of the 10.03 lakh cubic meter, all the foundation work of the bridge & its substructure is completed.

Chenab Bridge

It is an Indian railway steel and concrete arch bridge being built in between the Bakkal and Kauri in Reasi district of Jammu and Kashmir. The base support of the bridge was completed in November 2017 after which the construction of main arch started. The Deck height that is height above river bed is 359 metre while the height above river surface is 322 metre. The total length is the bridge is 1315 metre. This bridge is having the widest span in the Indian Broad gauge railway network.

Month: Current Affairs - March, 2021