This is a double-track high-speed railway linking Ningbo, China, with the Zhoushan Archipelago. It is designed for an operating speed of 250 kilometers per hour, with a total length of approximately 76.4 kilometers and a total investment of around 27 billion yuan. Full-scale construction of the project commenced in November 2022, and it is scheduled to open to traffic in 2028.
The Ningbo-Zhoushan Railway stretches across complex marine waters, with a bridge-tunnel ratio exceeding 90%. It comprises multiple key works including the Jintang Subsea Tunnel, Xihoumen Rail-cum-Road Bridge, and Fuchimen Rail-cum-Road Bridge. It is therefore a mega cross-sea integrated project combining long-span bridges and subsea tunnels.
As a massive cross-sea infrastructure, the railway is subjected to harsh environmental conditions including high salinity, high humidity and severe corrosion, imposing extremely stringent requirements on material performance and construction precision.
Cheeron has maintained an in-depth long-term partnership with China Railway Group Limited in the field of rebar splicing. For the Ningbo-Zhoushan Railway Project, Cheeron supplied over 600,000 units consisting of standard parallel-thread rebar couplers, position rebar couplers and lock nut couplers, delivering reliable support for high-quality construction.
Cheeron position rebar couplers feature a unique left-and-right-hand thread design, with right-hand threads on one end and left-hand threads on the other. Rotating the middle sleeve enables simultaneous two-way tightening. This structure locks rebars rapidly and effectively offsets rebar alignment tolerances on site. It is especially suitable for complex connection sections requiring precise adjustment on the Ningbo-Zhoushan Railway, greatly boosting construction efficiency and splicing accuracy.
Manufactured from premium carbon steel via precision machining, Cheeron standard parallel-thread couplers adopt full-profile parallel threads to guarantee that splice strength meets or exceeds the tensile strength of the base rebar. Mega-span structures such as the Xihoumen Rail-cum-Road Bridge bear enormous loads and require large-diameter rebars of 32 mm or even 40 mm. Cheeron parallel-thread couplers serve as critical connecting components at these vital load-bearing positions.
Furthermore, parallel-thread couplers equipped with lock nuts exhibit outstanding advantages at special structural joints. In cases where two rebars cannot butt against each other inside the sleeve on this project, Cheeron lock nut couplers eliminate thread clearances through clamping force to form firmer, safer connections.
The Ningbo-Zhoushan Railway sits within a marine environment, where chloride ions in seawater pose severe corrosion threats to reinforcing steel. Epoxy-coated rebars are widely adopted across the project. Conventional splicing methods require rotating the main rebar body, which easily scratches the epoxy coating and raises long-term corrosion risks. In contrast, Cheeron lock nut couplers eliminate the need to rotate the rebar body, fully preserving the integrity of the epoxy coating during installation and further enhancing the durability and safety of the whole project.
