Tianxingzhou Yangtze River Bridge is the first combined road and rail bridge equipped with “bumper armor”, which enables the bridge piers to withstand accidental impact by single 5,000-tonnage ship.

Installed around piers, the “bumper armor” uses several floating multi-stage energy-dissipating anti-collision devices and energy-absorbing flexible damping elements, and can deform automatically, delay impact and absorb some kinetic energy of the ship. According to calculation, the “bumper armor” enables the No. 1 pier of the bridge to withstand impact by one 32,000-tonnage fleet or by one 5,000-tonnage ship at 3.0 meters per second.

The project was completed in 2011, and the difficulties lay in the positioning and installation in waters.