10 Craziest Engineering Projects in China

10 Craziest Engineering Projects in China


Being a country with over a billion population, transport and utility systems would be in a massive scale like no other country ever experienced. These are China’s mega-projects with world records.
Largest Power Station: Three Gorges Dam. That also automatically makes it the largest hydroelectric power station on the planet—with maximum output capacity of 22,500 MW from 34 giant turbines. It took nine years long of construction with a staggering 27.6 billion USD, replacing Itaipú Dam that sits in the second place.


Longest Bridge: Danyang-Kunshan Grand Bridge: Believe it or not, this 164.8 km (102.4 mi) viaduct is part of world’s longest HSR line—Beijing-Shanghai Line in which three long bridges along this line listed in the 10 longest bridges in the world. Viaducts are common for high-speed train for a smooth ride on uneven terrain.
Longest High-speed Railway Network: China HSR Network. Currently, China has over 20,000 km (12,000 mi) of high-speed rail route with projection of 38,000 km (23,600 mi) by 2025. Over 1.1 billion ridership registered in 2015 alone.


Fastest Supercomputer: Sunway TaihuLight. Listed as the fastest supercomputer on the planet by top500.org since June 2016 at 93 petaflops based on LINPACK benchmark, replacing Tianhe-2, another China’s supercomputer. Even astonishing when Sunway TaihuLight 100% relying on homegrown technology especially its CPU.


Highest Bridge: Sidu River Bridge: This is the world’s highest bridge by a maximum vertical drop distance from deck which is about 496 m (1,627 ft). Commissioned in November 2009 with construction cost of 720 million Yuan. Located in southern part of China with plenty of deep gorges and steep hills, many similar rails and highway bridges were highly ranked in this category. 
Longest Railway Tunnel: Guangzhou Metro Line 3. Commissioned in 2010 after 5 years of construction, it is longer only by 3.3 km (2 mi) of that newly opened Gotthard Base Tunnel in second place. However there are longer tunnels but most of them function as water transfer.
Largest Building by Floor Area: New Century Global Center. Located in Chengdu, sixth largest city in China, this multipurpose building has a floor area of 1.7 million square meters (18 mil sq ft). Most of floor dedicated for retails, however its also offers houses offices, conference rooms, a university complex, two commercial centers, hotels, even water theme park at top of building.
Largest Aperture-filled Telescope: Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST). As its name tells, it has dish with diameter of 500 meter (1,640 ft) made of 4450 triangular panels with 11 meters on each side, in the form of geodesic dome. Begin testing in September 2016, but this radio telescope would be expected to be underutilized due to lack of experts in the area.
Fastest Commercial Operating Train: Shanghai Maglev Train. Transrapid finally made its first commercial usage of magnetic levitation train as an airport metro ferrying passengers between Longyang Road Station and Pudong international Airport on 30.5 km (19 mi) rail long route. Maximum operating speed is about 431 km/h (268 mph) although its absolute maximum is about 501 km/h (311 mph).


Among Largest engineering mega-project: South–North Water Transfer Project. It’s a multi-decade running project mega-project since Mao Zedong era aim to deliver 44.8 billion cubic meter of fresh water per year from south to more arid and industrialized northern region such as Beijing, Tianjin and Weihai.


Continue Reading about the "10 Craziest Engineering Projects in China" on the next page below


Post a Comment

Previous Post Next Post