Hello,

this is a Chinese bridge building machine. It was made by the Beijing Wowjoint Machinery Company and designed by the Shijiazhuang Railway Design Institute.

It works by extending itself over the bridge piers and then lowering the new bridge girder into place from above.
This working mechanism classifies it as a "launching gantry", hence why it is also called a Segmental Bridge Launching Machine or Segmental Bridge Launcher.

It can lift 900 tonnes of mass and carry a 32 meter long box girder.

There is an even bigger machine like this, called Kunlun (like the mountain range), that can carry 40 meter box girders weighing up to 1000 tonnes.


I made 8 versions of the SLJ900/32, each showing a in my opinion important moment during the girder placement process. I thought it would be a cool idea to have a fixed camera in the renders to give the impression that the machine is actually moving.

I also included an unfolded and folded up version of the triangular support leg the machine rests on while moving the girder into place in case you would like to recreate the machine in a state in between the 8 I made.

For those who care about scaling, I built this entire machine in 1.8125:1 scale. This odd scaling happened because I made the wheels 3 blocks high in the beginning and made everything else proportional to them.


And here is a video to understand better how the machine works. I prefer this one over the much more popular video by PhyXs Vision because it is not cropped, so you see more of the actual process.


Enjoy!