The kind of progress China is making in the public development sector is remarkable. We have seen the majestic highways and railway lines connecting the inland territory with the greatest manufacturing empire the world has ever seen. It couldn’t have been possible without the rapid development of these physical communications networks and we all know what takes more time in civil engineering work than anything else; Bridges. To speed things up and get every nook and cranny of their country connected, the Chinese have perfected a robot that can lay bridges over pillars in a fraction of the time possible.
Weighing over 570 tonnes and measuring over 91 meters long, 7.4 meters wide and nine meters high, it is a colossal machine that matches the requirement of the world’s most populous country. This machine builds bridges at a speed and using a mechanism that is never seen before. Here watch this:
You can see how it deviates from the traditional bridge-laying technology. Instead of using heavy cranes to move construction material from one pillar to another, this giant of robot travels to the entire length of the next tower with a deployable track and once it is stable, the connection is used to pull the new bridge segment in tow. Once the bridge segment is in place, the construction crew can begin their work of fitting rest of the stuff in. Once the new segment has been finished, the robot can now repeat the procedure on the next pillar. If you couldn’t fully understand it the first time, have another go on it. It could be a cool university project as well, on a smaller scale of course!
The robot was made Beijing Wowjoint Machinery Co. Ltd that supplies customized heavy machinery for lifting and carrying in the field. However, little is known about the machine and the safety equipment used by its workers because that would create certain challenges if it were to be used in the States in the future. A study using this tech was published in the Chinese Journal of railway engineering society.