Haicang Aoguan Avenue crossing: falsework that stands in the tide
A cast-in-place deck over open water. Everything below it — piles, capping steel, Bailey trusses, deck steel — has to be set, checked and struck from a working platform a few metres above the tide.
Four systems, one working level
The crossing is built almost entirely over water, so the temporary works are not a side package — they are the project. Pipe piles carry the load into the seabed, Bailey trusses span between pile bents, ringlock frames give the deck gang a level to work from, and reusable steel forms cast the barrier plinth along each edge.
This page follows the sequence with our own site photographs, from the pile group up to the guardrail post.
Spiral welded pipe piles, pile-head steel and capping plates to drawing.
321 / 200 trusses, transoms, sway braces and pins, erected bent by bent.
Reinforcement, kerb and barrier plinth cast on the falsework.
Base-plate guardrail posts and three-tube rail, galvanised for salt air.
Piles first, and a cap that can be levelled
Each bent starts with a group of spiral welded pipe piles driven into the bay bed. The pile heads are cut to level and capped with steel that carries the transverse beams — which is where the tolerance of the whole falsework is decided.
The same detail repeats along the crossing, so the capping steel, jacking points and bracing were fabricated as a repeatable set rather than one-off pieces. That is what keeps erection crews moving from bent to bent without waiting on a fitter.
- Pile-head steel set to the surveyed level, checked before the trusses land
- Bracing and jacking brackets welded to the same procedure as the caps
- Galvanised or coated for splash-zone exposure, recorded per bundle
Bailey trusses do the spanning, ringlock does the standing
Between the bents, Bailey trusses carry the deck formwork. Along the edge, ringlock frames give the fixing and pouring gang a stable platform with toe boards and edge protection — the part of the package that site crews judge first.
Panels, transoms, sway braces and pins ship as one bill of materials per span, so erection does not stop halfway for a missing pin box.
Where the temporary steel meets the permanent concrete
On top of the falsework the deck is laid out: bearers, soffit formwork, reinforcement, and the edge detail that will eventually hold the barrier. Every one of those interfaces is set out from the same survey line, which is why the kerb, plinth and barrier posts are fabricated to the deck drawing rather than to a catalogue.
The barrier plinth is cast along the deck edge with the anchor bolts set to a template. Posts then land on base plates, shimmed and grouted, with the rail line following the deck curve.
The crossing reads differently from the air
From the shore the works look like a single line; from above you can see how the trestle, the working platforms and the pile bents step out into the bay, and how much of the site is reached only by the temporary steel itself.
That is the argument for buying the package as one supply: piles, trusses, falsework and edge steel arrive on the same drawings, with the same coating specification and one packing list.
What left the workshop for this site
The table is the package as supplied — not a catalogue list. Dimensions, hole patterns and coating were set against the project drawings and approved before fabrication.
| Location | Aoguan Bay, Haicang District, Xiamen, Fujian, China |
| Crossing | Sea crossing, cast-in-place deck with pedestrian and cycle lane |
| Foundation steel | Spiral welded pipe piles, pile-head steel, capping plates, bracing |
| Temporary works | Bailey 321 / 200 trusses, transoms, sway braces, pins; ringlock falsework |
| Deck works | Reinforcement, kerb steel, cast-in anchor bolts and barrier plinth |
| Barrier | Base-plate guardrail posts, three-tube rail, anchor sets |
| Finish | Hot-dip galvanised, with painted elements where specified |
| Documentation | Shop drawings, material certificates, dimensional check, packing list, loading photographs |
| Delivery | FOB Xiamen / CIF / DAP |
Twelve frames from the crossing
Unstaged photographs from the deck and the trestle. Click any frame to open it full size.
Photographs from our own site and workshop files, October 2026. Project names describe the works; the supply scope for any particular package is confirmed on the purchase order.
The steel behind the photographs
Building over water? Send the drawings.
Tell us the span, the water depth and the port. We reply with an itemised quotation, weights and a preliminary loading plan.