Asia's Largest Wide-Body Aircraft Maintenance Hangar Put into Operation
en.Wedoany.com Reported - On September 2, the commissioning ceremony for the Eastern Airlines International Aviation Maintenance Service Platform project—Asia's largest wide-body aircraft maintenance hangar, constructed by China Railway 18th Bureau Group—was held in the Lingang New Area of Shanghai, marking the official implementation of this important strategic initiative by Eastern Airlines to support the development of Shanghai as an international shipping center.
Commissioning site
The Eastern Airlines International Aviation Maintenance Service Platform project mainly involves the construction of 11 individual structures, including the new Hangar No. 1, Hangar No. 2, aviation materials warehouse, and accessory repair center, as well as supporting outdoor works. Among them, the hall of Maintenance Hangar No. 1 spans 313 meters in width and 146 meters in depth, covering an area of approximately 46,000 square meters. It is one of the world's rare wide-body aircraft maintenance hangars with such a large span and depth, capable of accommodating 9 wide-body aircraft and 2 narrow-body aircraft simultaneously for full-aircraft maintenance operations.
The maintenance hangar hall spans 313 meters
The maintenance hangar hall features an extremely large span and depth, imposing exceptionally high requirements on the roof structure design and material strength. The project team, in collaboration with domestic universities and industry experts, conducted scientific research and analysis, repeatedly compared and selected construction plans, and innovatively proposed the "efficient construction technology for integral lifting of locally reinforced super-large-span double-bay hangar roof," achieving multiple benefits.
The roof adopts a three-layer diagonally placed quadrangular pyramid welded spherical joint space grid system, extensively using Q420B high-strength steel, with the thickest steel plate reaching 120 millimeters. It is the first project in the aviation field to adopt such a welded spherical joint space grid, laying a solid foundation for the long-term safe operation of the hangar.
The 24 lifting points were intelligently coordinated by computers, achieving millimeter-level high-precision synchronous control and effectively avoiding the risk of structural deformation. Meanwhile, digital monitoring technology was adopted throughout the project, enabling real-time collection and early warning of key parameters such as stress and displacement, equipping the lifting operation with a "smart hub" and ensuring the entire process was safe and controllable.
For the roof construction, an innovative "in-situ assembly and integral lifting" construction method was proposed, lifting the roof covering an area of approximately 41,000 square meters and weighing over 7,000 tons by 21.4 meters in a single operation. This is equivalent to parking 90 Boeing 737 aircraft on 6 football fields and lifting them to the height of a 7-story building.
The successful application of this technology is a concentrated demonstration of China's technical strength in the field of large-span steel structures. It has verified the maturity and reliability of China's integral lifting technology for super-large-span structures of 300 meters and above, which has reached the internationally leading level.
Roof construction site
During the construction period, the project team also addressed difficulties such as the compact site space and complex layout planning by leveraging BIM technology to carry out full-process virtual construction and site layout optimization. BIM models were established to scientifically plan the functional zoning of the construction site, and combined with construction personnel traffic flow and material transportation routes, the width and turning design of internal site passages were optimized to ensure overall construction efficiency.
Exterior view of the maintenance hangar
It is reported that, as an important functional project for the construction of Shanghai as an international aviation hub and a landmark hardware facility for Shanghai's high-end aviation manufacturing, the new hangar will deeply synergize with the Lingang New Area Large Aircraft Industrial Park. Through close coordination with the COMAC final assembly base and delivery center, it will attract domestic and international upstream and downstream enterprises in aviation parts manufacturing and new materials to cluster, driving the formation of a larger-scale aviation maintenance industry cluster, strengthening Shanghai's core position in the aviation industry within the Yangtze River Delta world-class urban agglomeration, and enhancing the global influence of Shanghai's aviation industry.
