Using rockets to build a bridge

The Siduhe Grand Bridge

Building bridges across vast expanses have always presented certain problems. However, one of the main challenges is once you make the towers, how do you get a pilot cable from one to the next? A year ago, the makers of the Siduhe Grand Bridge in China's Hubei province came up with a unique solution and broke new ground in how to connect two bridge towers - using rockets.

The Siduhe Grand Bridge took four years to build and is reportedly the highest bridge in the world, standing 2,132 feet above a valley. It is so high that you could fit the Empire State Building underneath it and still have 360ft left. It smashes the current record for highest deck-to-ground distance held by the Royal Gorge Bridge in Colorado, that stands 1,053ft. The problem is that the valley that the bridge spans is 3,200ft wide, quite a distance to get the pilot cable across.

On previous bridge projects, this has been dealt with by attaching the cable to a kite and flying it over, such as in the case of Niagara Falls Suspension Bridge or by using a helicoptor to fly it over, like in the construction of Akashi Kaikyo Bridge in Japan. Sometimes, boats are used to transport the cable such as in the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge in New York, however the Chinese engineers decided to break another record and opted to use precision rockets to fire the cable over the valley.

Not only did the experiment work, but the Chinese construction team became the first bridge building team to use rockets to build a bridge.

Images from Deputy Dog

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