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Bridge Bearing:
Natural Rubber bearing generally consists or interleaving layers of rubber bonded sandwich fashion to steel plates. The whole unit is covered with rubber to afford weather protection.
A bridge basically consists of bridge deck supported by piers. In order to avoid over stressing and damage by movements of vehicle and loading to the piers, bridge bearings are used to accommodate these movements so as to reduce the reaction forces and bending movement to within the safety limits of structure. Natural Rubber is an ideal engineering material for bridge bearings as it is highly elastic and sufficiently soft to accommodate these movements without transmitting harmful stress and also it can absorb and isolate energies from impacts and vibrations.
Types of bearings
- Laminated bearings an elastomeric bearing containing steel laminates bonded to rubber
- Plain pad bearing a plain rubber pad containing no steel plates
- Strip bearing a plain pad bearing for which the length is much greater than the width ( > 10 times)
- Pot bearing a bearing consisting essentially of a block of solid rubber enclosed between a metal piston and metal cylinder
Manufacturing Process
- Preparation of rubber compound according to specification required
- Preparation of steel plates
- Application of bonding agent to steel plates
- Assembly of compound and plates
- Compression moulding
- Performance Test
- Ready for installation
Bridge Bearings
