CHONGQING (CQNEWS) -- Chongqing is a land of natural beauty and a city with great bridges. When you drive across a bridge, have you ever noticed a group of people walking to the bridge every day? They climb bridge towers, get through its “belly” and go down to the bottom to “examine” the bridge. They are called “bridge doctors”. Following steps of “bridge doctors”, the reporter will show you how they protect bridges and ensure their safe operation. 

On the bridge, cars are rushing; under the bridge, the river is rippling. Red columns, main cables and giant “Chinese Knots” on Cuntan Yangtze River Bridge make the bridge more majestic. As of September last year, there were 46 river-spanning bridges in total in Chonqing's main urban districts. Then how to maintain these bridges? There are a group of people who guarantee the security of every bridge. 

As soon as Zhang Ben and his partner Yan Fuyang step on Cuntan Yangtze River Bridge, they begin to “examine” this bridge. The Bridge Maintenance and Management Office of Chongqing Municipal Facilities Maintenance and Management Center they working in, is responsible for the maintenance of six river-spanning bridges, including Cuntan Yangtze River Bridge, Dafosi Yangtze River Bridge. Whether the guardrails are damaged, the drained cells are blocked and the nuts of guardrails are loose... All these are the points of their daily inspection. 

“Examining” bridges is almost on foot. In addition to bridge deck inspection, in most of the examinations, staff need to go through the access channels. Many of the channels are made by iron railings with a diameter of less than 1 meter and they are basically vertical up and down. After inspecting a bridge, the steps of a maintainer can easily “reach ten thousand”. And for they often climb access channels, glove is also one of their necessary tools. 

Cuntan Yangtze River Bridge is a steel box beam single-span suspension bridge. The anchorages on both side are like weights, holding the main cable of the bridge firmly. Zhang Ben and Yan Fuyang get into anchor chamber. Following the flashlight, it can be seen that the main cable penetrates into the anchorage through saddles, and then spreads out 110 strands of cables, which are able to bear the strain from the whole bridge. In the process of maintenance, they carefully examine whether the steel members in anchor chamber are rusted or have other problems.

From the bottom to the top along the anchor chamber, they examine whether the cable strands are rusted or cracked. In spite of the narrow and dark path, they have been very skillful in actions for they have been working here all year round. 

Wet environment will erode the main cable and other metal components of the bridge and shorten its life cycle. Therefore, a dehumidification system is installed in the anchor chamber. Zhang Ben is checking whether the dehumidification system works normally.

Up to the interior diaphragm, it is nearly 100 meters high from bridge deck. Being in the same height as the remarkable “Chinese knots” of Cuntan Yangtze River Bridge, its surrounding scenery is so fascinating. “Chinese knot” of this bridge is a steel structure, so Zhang Ben and Yan Fuyang need to carefully check whether the welds are cracked and whether the bridge monitoring works normal.

Every time after climbing the bridge, enjoying scenery becomes the gift that Yan Fuyang gives to himself. Standing at the top of bridge and looking over, you may feel amazing. He told the report that standing here and feeling the rapid development of this city, a sense of pride would come into mind. 

“Up to the sky and down to the earth” is quite common for bridge doctors. Go down from the interior diaphragm nearly a 100 meters high, then they bent to enter the bottom of this bridge through an inspection car to check carefully whether there are cracks, water seepages and other problems. “Every beam needs to check, and it will take you almost half a day,” said Zhang Ben.

In addition to the artificial inspection, the intelligent monitoring system to check bridge structure operation condition brings convenience to bridge management. In the monitoring center, staff can also monitor the real-time condition of the bridge through videos.

The inspection of a bridge includes regular inspection, periodic inspection and special inspection. And the inspection conducted by Zhang Ben and Yan Fuyang on the day is regular inspection, which will be done every day with a high frequency. It takes more than half a day to examine a bridge, and this is also the daily work of many "bridge doctors". After the inspection, Zhang Ben and Yan Fuyang are able to ease themselves to “finish the work”. With cars rushing behind, the security of this bridge can be partly attributed to them. (Translated by Liu Sha, Fathom Language Limited)