First steel tube shell of immersed tunnel delivered

The first steel tube shell of an immersed tunnel of the Shenzhen-Zhongshan channel was delivered from Guangzhou’s Nansha district, Guangdong province on June 25. All 6.8 kilometers of the tunnel’s tube steel shell sections are built by a Nansha shipbuilding company.

The first steel tube shell of an immersed tunnel of the Shenzhen-Zhongshan channel is delivered from Guangzhou’s Nansha district. [Photo by Li Xiatong/gznsnews.com.cn]

The immersed tunnel of the channel is the world's first extra-large, extra-deep sea submerged tunnel, and it is also the world's first large-scale steel shell construction.

The Shenzhen-Zhongshan channel E1 tube is 123.5 meters long, 46 meters wide and 10.6 meters high. It is a steel-concrete composite structure with a steel shell weight of 8,716 tons.

A complete tube displacement is 80,000 tons, equivalent to the displacement of a medium-sized aircraft carrier. The Shenzhen-Zhongshan channel under construction is about 24 km in length.

The tubes transported from Nansha to Zhuhai, another city of Guangdong province, are for the first tunnel steel tube connecting Zhuhai west artificial island and Shenzhen east artificial island.

The project is a major national undertaking and an important part of the transportation network of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

It is also of strategic importance for promoting the industrial interconnection of the eastern and western sides of the Pearl River Delta and the efficient allocation of various economic factors, as well as accelerating the development of the Guangdong pilot Free Trade Zone and promoting the coordinated development of the urban agglomerations of the Greater Bay Area.

The worker is examing the seetings. [Photo by Li Xiatong/gznsnews.com.cn]

The 24-km tunnel adopts a two-way eight-lane expressway technical standard with a design speed of 100 km/h. Its estimated budget of the project is about 44.69 billion yuan ($6.52 billion). It is scheduled to be completed and opened to traffic in 2024.

The channel has three connection ports, namely Shenzhen Airport Interchange, Wanqingsha of Nansha, and Hengmen of Zhongshan. After its completion the driving time from Nansha to Shenzhen will be greatly shortened.