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We’re obviously looking at 21st-century technology of building segmental bridges, and as far as we can tell, this video was shot in China. Watching this buddy at work will most likely scare the hell out of those people who believe the end of humanity is the rise of artificial intelligence, but there’s a lot of superior engineering to it that is quite appealing.
First of all, building a bridge in short sections as opposed to traditional methods that make them in huge sections is a rather novel practice. As a matter of fact, the first segmental concrete bridge, built in 1950, was cast-in-place across the Lahn River in Balduinstein, Germany. The first precast segmental concrete bridge, created 12 years later, crossed the Seine River in France.
However, this method still wasn’t fast enough for China’s massive development pace, which is probably the reason they started using launching machines. These bad boys come in all sorts of shapes and sizes and are regularly personalized to suit the specific bridge design, construction conditions, and structural dimensions of beams.
The future of construction is here! All thanks to China, not always something you hear everyday but yes China has created a bridge section setting machine. This machine goes from pillar to pillar and sets each piece of bridge on to it and then moves to the next. Diffusion of this idea could quickly move from China to other countries and this would allow countries that are not China to be able to build bridge just as quickly. Now, it looks very scary when watching the video but if the job gets done any quicker I would be all for the machine, as long as it is safe. Other countries may not be willing to share the idea with others, but may sell it to other countries and make some money on it and just maybe boost their own economy.