In 2006, the United States suddenly turned to China and handed over the "San Francisco Bay Bridge", which cost as much as $7.2 billion, to Chinese companies to build.
But this is not easy to accept, from the tender to the completion, the United States has been picking bones in the eggA fine of $300,000 is imposed for one day of late delivery.
As a result, what the United States did not expect was that the Chinese company not only did not delay the delivery, but also completed the project five months ahead of schedule, making a lot of money for the United States back and forth. So how did the Chinese engineering team do it?
Located in the San Francisco Bay Area, the San Francisco Bay Bridge is one of the most important transportation hubs in the United States, directly connecting San Francisco and Oakland.
However, the bridge seems to have been given an "ill-fated script".
In the late 80s of the last century, there was a sudden occurrence in San Francisco**, and part of the road surface on the east side of the Bay Bridge was damaged, resulting in a normal traffic for vehicles.
In desperation, the local government had to temporarily block the bridge first, and considering the cost and other factors, the local government finally chose to repair the damaged road surface.
Although the bridge repair technology in the United States was not advanced at that time, it was barely usable after repair.
In addition, the collision of the bridge is also commonplace.
In 2007, in the process of crossing the Bay Bridge, the hull of the "COSCO Busan" accidentally slammed into the baffle of the bridge pier, causing the structure of the baffle to be significantly deformed.
Fortunately, the tanker was in an empty state at the time, so it did not cause a serious oil spill, but the Bay Bridge was not so good, and part of the bridge pier structure was seriously damaged.
In fact, this is not the first time that the Bay Bridge has been hit, and its hull structure is already covered with scars.
In the past, the United States always wanted to continue to repair and repair, but its own technology was very limited, and the traffic flow of the Bay Bridge was not small, and the requirements for bearing capacity were high, so the repair was actually a palliative rather than a cure.
After some thought, the United States made a painful decision to rebuild the bridge, but the first question became, who should it build?
As everyone knows, although the United States ranks first in terms of economy, its fencing capacity is relatively limited compared with some large fencing countries.
The Bay Bridge is the world's largest two-way bridge, and it is also the most difficult single-tower self-anchored seismic suspension steel bridge ever built in the world.
During the construction of the bridge, 45,000 tons of steel were used for the bridge alone, you can imagine how difficult it is to build, but we like to "face the difficulties".
After the United States announced that the Bay Bridge, which cost up to $7.2 billion, was open to global bidding, Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries quickly studied the feasibility of winning the project.
After studying it around, the United States had to admit that only Chinese companies could complete such a huge project, so it decided to hand over the project to Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries.
In the run-up to the construction of the bridge, the U.S.-China cooperation team continued to maintain dialogue on the construction of the bridge, but due to the time difference between China and the United States, the Chinese team often had to get up at 7 a.m. in Shanghai to communicate with the U.S. team.
In the process of communication, the Chinese team also had to constantly improve the construction plan according to the opinions put forward by the US side, and the entire team members were busy until the early hours of the morning every day.
Originally, cooperation was a matter of mutual affection, as long as the United States put the money in place, and Chinese companies would build the bridge in place, but the United States has made a lot of mistakes.
First of all, considering that the original Bay Bridge has undergone the baptism of **, the United States requires that the bridge be built to the level of anti-8**.
Level 8** is called "huge**" and basically reaches a level that can destroy most buildings, which shows that this requirement put forward by the United States is not easy to complete.
However, as an "infrastructure madman", China has built bridges on the first belt, and naturally there is no way to completely stump Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industry.
Seeing that it is difficult for Chinese companies, the United States has begun to pick on the thorns of Chinese companies in their facilities.
Because the construction of a bridge of this scale requires a lot of steel and a variety of equipment, the United States has begun to doubt whether Chinese companies can come up with such equipment, and even sent people to China for field investigations.
Obviously, the United States was naturally disappointed, because the Chinese company not only has a 20,000-ton wharf, but also a 160,000 tons of material plant.
Seeing that Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industry's family background was okay, the United States began to provoke "people" problems again, requiring all Chinese welders in the project to obtain a certificate from the American Welding Association before participating in the construction.
For Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industry, for the time being, how difficult the specific exam is, it is difficult to overcome the obstacle of English alone.
However, since they asked for it, Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industry still did it, and immediately began to open various trainings to find ways to let employees learn Xi English.
In order to motivate employees to get the certificate as soon as possible, Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industry also promised to get rewards as long as they can pass the exam, and under the company's encouragement, many employees are also very competitive to pass the exam.
After there was no way to pick problems from Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industry, the United States put forward another demand, that is, Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industry must complete the delivery within the specified construction period, otherwise Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industry would have to pay a fine of 300,000 US dollars for every day of delayed delivery.
In the end, considering 7.2 billion US dollars, Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries still chose to agree to the request of the United States, but during the construction process, Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries once faced a huge risk of delaying delivery, what happened during the period?
It turned out that during the construction process, there was a structure that needed to weigh up to 150,000 tons of steel towers, which involves a lot of technology.
Before the official construction, the design team had already proposed the construction plan, but it had not been verified in practice.
According to the construction schedule at that time, once a problem was found in the design of the steel tower during the construction process, it would have to be overturned and restarted, which would not only lead to a large number of parts being scrapped, but also may delay the project.
Therefore, after repeated measurements, Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industry decided to build a model according to the same scale.
Sure enough, in the process of formal synthesis, Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industry found that according to the original design, the bridge could not be closed, which made the construction teams of China and the United States anxious.
For the Chinese team at that time, this situation was "everything is ready and only the east wind is owed", and suddenly you were told that the east wind was not coming.
Fortunately, with the efforts of the Chinese and American staff, it took both sides a full eight months to successfully overcome this problem, so that the project did not have to face delays.
It was not until 2010 that the ill-fated steel tower was finally assembled, and the Chinese team breathed a sigh of relief.
The 160-metre-high steel tower was designed with more than 570,000 uniform spirals and screw holes.
According to the original contract between the two parties, the Chinese team wanted to achieve an assembly accuracy of 1,500 percent for the whole tower, but the actual assembly accuracy reached 1,500 percent, indicating that the Chinese enterprise not only completed it, but also exceeded it.
On October 28, 2011, with the completion of the splicing of the only remaining bridge deck, the entire project contracted by Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industry was officially completed, which was five months earlier than the deadline agreed by China and the United States.
Because it was completed five months ahead of schedule, Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries also received an additional $62 million in revenue, but is the significance of building the San Francisco Bay Bridge only profitable? Not really.
For Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industry, although the United States has put forward very strict conditions, this is not a driving force.
For example, at the request of the United States, more than 2,000 workers in Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industry won the certificate of the American Welding Association, and there were very few people who could get this certificate in China at that time, and later they also became leaders in related fields.
In addition, the bridge involves many technologies, many of which are used for the first time, which actually promotes Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industry to improve its own strength.
With the successful completion of the project by Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industry ahead of schedule, China's infrastructure strength has once again started overseas.
Today, the San Francisco Bay Bridge is one of the busiest bridges in the United States, connecting two large cities, providing great convenience for the people of the two cities, and also connecting the feelings of China and the United States.