In 1934, Dr. Mao Yisheng was entrusted with organizing the preparation for the construction of the Qiantang River Bridge and hired Mei Yangchun as the chief engineering department. The old mother taught her to put her career first, so she took her young daughter to Hangzhou to work on the design of the Qiantang River road-rail bridge. At this time, domestic steel production was lagging behind and had to be customized from abroad. In order to reduce weight and save money, chromium-copper alloy steel was used for the first time in China. When the design drawings were completed and contracted to the British company Dowman Long, the British company was limited to its own experience and proposed to modify the drawings. Mei Yangchun used his incisive theory and practical experience to directly talk to them and argue with them, convincing them and feeling proud of the Chinese engineers.
The Qiantang River Bridge was opened to traffic in 1937. Three months later, the Japanese army invaded Hangzhou. After completing the tasks of building and bombing the bridge, the Engineering Department retreated step by step to the rear. In the previous two years, because Wuhan planned to build a Yangtze River Bridge, the Qiantang River Bridge Engineering Office led by Mao Yisheng planned it. After the preliminary planning was completed in 1936, before and after the Qiantang River Bridge was opened to traffic, Mei Yangchun went to Hankou and served as the Public Works Section Chief of the Hankou Municipal Government, presiding over the preliminary design work of the Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge. When Wuhan fell in 1938, Mei Yangchun retreated to the rear, and then moved to Kunming, where he served as the engineering department of the former Bridge Design Office of the Ministry of Communications.
Shortly after the start of the Anti-Japanese War, the Nanjing National Government retreated to the southwest, and the coastal ports were occupied by the Japanese one by one. Only the Yunnan-Vietnam Railway was still passable. Long Yun, Chairman of the Yunnan Provincial Government, proposed the construction of the Burma Highway in 1937 at the beginning of the Anti-Japanese War. Thanks to the efforts of the anti-Japanese army and civilians, the road was opened to traffic at the end of August 1938. However, as a key project, the designed passing capacity of the original Gongguo Bridge across the Lancang River was too low, and a backup bridge was needed for air defense. Qian Changgan, director of the Bridge Design Department, led engineers such as Zhao Suizhang, Wang Xusen, Liu Zengda, and Li Zongda to design the new Gongguo Bridge. (To commemorate Mr. Qian Changgan, who died when his military plane was shot down by a Japanese plane, it was later named Changgan Bridge). The bridge is China's first modern highway suspension bridge with steel-stiffened girders. The main span of the bridge is 135 meters. It was comprehensively reviewed by Mei Yangchun. During the review, a complete working system for ordering materials, processing, transportation, and erection was established in terms of steel structure manufacturing and construction site installation requirements. It set an example for the construction of complex long-span steel bridges in China and laid the foundation for cultivating talents in this field. The steel structure of the new bridge was ordered from abroad and transported via the Burma Highway for installation. The design took 4 months (February-May 1939) and the construction took 17 months (June 1939-November 1940)** *It is expected to be opened to traffic in just 21 months. Unfortunately, it was bombed by Japanese aircraft only 42 days after it was completed.
In 1940, Mei Yangchun transferred to the Engineering Department of the Guangxi South Engineering Bureau of the Hunan-Guangxi Railway and worked hard to complete the Hunan-Guangxi Railway. The key project was the Liujiang Bridge. Luo Ying, deputy director of the Hunan-Guangxi Railway Engineering Bureau and former chief engineering director of the Qiantang River Bridge, saw that the steel beams ordered from abroad for the Liujiang Bridge could not be shipped in. He saw that old rails and long and short rails from the Zhejiang-Guangxi and other lines were piled up along the Hunan-Guangxi Railway. Various old steel plate girders were used to build new bridges using these materials. This specific task fell on the design office led by Mei Yangchun. Mei Yangchun uses his solid basic skills and ingenuity to break away from conventional ideas and create new structural layouts and details. The design was completed in an empty carriage. In order to avoid bombings during the day, the carriages were pulled far away from the city and brought back at night. In a difficult working environment, Chinese engineers completed the design with outstanding creative talents. Due to its novel and lightweight structure, the driver was intimidated, but Luo Ying and Mei Yangchun crossed the bridge with the car without incident.
Liujiang Bridge is such a rare bridge: there are many railway steel trestles in the world, but none of them are so light and smart. At that time, the Ministry of Transport gave a special commendation. Former minister Zhang Jiaao called it to foreign reports: "A bridge that has never been tried by foreign engineers." Unfortunately, not long after (1944), the Japanese army invaded Guilin and the bridge was ordered to be blown up. The same fate as Qiantang River Bridge and Lancang River Bridge.
In 1944, Mei Yangchun joined the Chongqing Cable Car Company organized by Mao Yisheng as the chief engineering department and director of the public works department, and designed and built the first mountaineering cable car in Chongqing, the Wanglongmen Cable Car. From today's perspective, this is an inconspicuous project. But in that era, it was not easy to have such a project. To preside over this project, one must have multi-faceted knowledge and expertise in civil engineering, machinery, electrical machinery, etc. Mei Yangchun succeeded in one fell swoop.
Mr. Mao Yisheng foresaw the imminent victory of the Anti-Japanese War, so he organized the China Bridge Company to take on the civil engineering and bridge engineering tasks of rebuilding China after the war. In 1946, the company's Wuhan branch was established, and Mei Yangchun served as the manager of the Wuhan branch.
Originally intended to undertake the construction of the Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge. However, after the Anti-Japanese War, the Kuomintang was keen on civil war. The economy was depressed, the currency was devalued, and there were very few projects to be done. Therefore, the branch company undertook some projects such as factory building installation and single train turntable, among which the relatively large ones were the cableway project of Pingxiang Coal Mine in Jiangxi Province. He is not selective about food and will do anything. This gives full play to Mei Yangchun's multi-faceted technical advantages, allowing the branch to survive in the struggle until liberation.
After Wuhan was liberated in 1949, the people's government gave him great trust and sponsored Mei Yangchun to go south with the army. Under the guidance of Soviet experts, he participated in the emergency repair of the damaged bridges on the Guangdong-Hankou Railway, giving full play to his special skills in handling bridges. The ability to change problems and make outstanding achievements. Therefore, after the emergency repairs were completed, he was appointed deputy director of the Design Bureau of the Ministry of Railways.
At the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China, Li Wenji initiated, Mao Yisheng took the lead, and Mei Yangchun and others signed, and submitted the "Proposal for the Preparation of the Wuhan Memorial Bridge" to the central government to build the Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge. As a "commemorative building for the success of the new democratic revolution". The opportunity coincides with the central government’s grand plan. The Ministry of Railways established a "Bridge Committee" to start building the bridge, and appointed Mei Yangchun to concurrently serve as the captain of the Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge Surveying and Drilling Team to organize and lead the team to conduct large-scale surveying, drilling and investigation work within the three towns of Wuhan, and invited geological expert Gu Dezhen The geological conditions in Wuhan area are inferred from the macroscopic level. In order to solve the connection between Beijing-Hankong and Guangdong-Hankong before the bridge was built, Mei Yangchun also initiated and led the design and construction of a temporary train ferry project.
With the support of the local party and government and the technical proficiency, the survey task was quickly completed. In 1950, the Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge Design Group was established in Beijing. Mei Yangchun traveled to both places to provide guidance. Based on the Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge plan drawn up with Mao Yisheng that year, he personally drew a 140 x 280 x 140 meter five-hole arch truss outrigger plan with a clearance of 33 meters under the bridge for reference. At that time, due to the many factors involved, as well as the political situation, financial and material resources, and technical conditions, the final solution was to use the Soviet Union to supply low-carbon steel materials and Soviet experts to provide technical guidance, which is now the 9-hole 128-meter It is a flat-chord double-layer steel truss bridge with a clearance of 28 meters under the bridge.
The Wuhan Bridge Engineering Bureau was established in 1953. Peng Min was the director and chief engineer, and later Wang Juqian was the chief engineer and Mei Yangchun was the deputy chief engineer. He returned to Han from Beijing and joined a delegation to visit the Soviet Union. After returning to China, he cooperated with Soviet experts and the essence of the bridge industry mobilized from across the country to work together. Technical personnel from China and the Soviet Union worked together from planning, design, testing to construction layout, and formed a good friendship. There are innovations in the upper and lower structures of Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge, especially in the lower structure.
In 1955, Mei Changchun sponsored a solicitation for the Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge bridge head construction and approach plans from famous architectural design units and colleges across the country, and the 25th type was selected. After review by the advisory committee, Premier Zhou Enlai of the Government Affairs Council approved the adoption of the 25th type. Plan 25.
During the construction of the Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge and its ancillary projects, Mei Yangchun used his leading ideas and working methods that always focused on first-hand practice. He often visited the construction site to solve difficulties during the construction. Although he encountered dangers many times, , never tired of enjoying it, and the project progressed quickly. In 1956, when the Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge had reached a certain scale, Mei Yangchun was transferred back to Beijing to serve as deputy chief engineer of the General Administration of Infrastructure of the Ministry of Railways due to work needs. After the completion of the Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge in 1957, Mei Yangchun, who was in Beijing, was ordered by the Ministry of Railways to study the technical issues of the three Yangtze River bridge projects in Nanjing, Wuhu and Yidu.
In 1958, the central government officially decided to build the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge and renamed the Wuhan Bridge Engineering Bureau as the Bridge Engineering Bureau. Peng Min was the director and Mei Yangchun was the chief engineer. The construction of the first Yangtze River bridge that uses domestically produced materials, was designed and constructed by the Chinese people with great determination and self-reliance began.
At the beginning of his appointment, he began to consider how to improve the technical level achieved on the Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge, build a bridge in Nanjing, which is wider, with deeper water and more complex foundation conditions, and use more suitable bridge upper and lower bridges. department structure. He consulted the library materials of Beijing, Tsinghua, Peking University and other libraries, then reviewed the situation based on the obtained survey and drilling records, absorbed the helpful opinions of his right-hand man, and came up with a preliminary overall picture.
Mei Yangchun returned to Wuhan with a plan that had already been consulted with members of the Academy of Sciences.
He first mobilized technical forces within the Bridge Bureau, and then invited technical consultants from outside the Bureau in various ways to hold a series of meetings from the upper part of the bridge to the lower part, from structure to art, from Wuhan to Nanjing, and finally determined the principles and principles of bridge construction. The formal bridge planning, design and construction team has opened a new battlefield in Nanjing.
The initial plan proposed in Beijing at that time was seven holes, the middle five holes were semi-penetrating rigid trusses, flexible steel arches, and the bridge span was 125×250×125 meters. The foundation includes caissons, pipe strings, pipe string plus caissons, locking pipe string caissons, etc. What was finally determined was nine piers with ten holes, nine holes 160 meters, and one hole 128 meters. The rhombus-shaped steel truss reinforced with curved strings on the pier. A "10,000-ton giant ship" can pass under the bridge. The clearance height is 24 meters above the navigable water level. . Such a decision is still subject to certain subjective and objective conditions. The superstructure is not as ideal as Mr. Mei Yangchun's ideal. Such a large number of deep water piers is something that technicians in Western countries regard as a daunting prospect and try their best to reduce and avoid it by increasing the span of the bridge.
The river surface at the site of the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge is about 1,500 meters wide, with an average water depth of about 30 meters. The riverbed covering layer is generally 35-48 meters, with the thickest point reaching 90 meters. Except for Pier No. 1 at the Pu Port, all bridge piers are above the stone layer under the covering layer. The geological and hydrological conditions at each bridge pier are different and require different methods to solve them. The design and construction experience of one pier can be used as a reference for the next pier to improve and develop the design. Therefore, the underwater bridge piers were built one by one, using a variety of structural forms in addition to locking pipe column caissons. For the first time in Nanjing Bridge, prestressed reinforced concrete technology was applied to large-diameter pipe columns and approach beams. department. Everything is decided through careful testing.
The Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge Project Headquarters is located at the intersection of the Yangtze River and the Jinshui River, a tributary of the Qinhuai River. The construction site can be seen from the river embankment in the office. There is a special pier for the headquarters on the riverside. You can reach the pier for water construction within three minutes of getting on the boat. The command approaching the battlefield like this knows the situation well and can naturally control the chance of victory.