Bridge bearings – Structural design requirements

The load carrying capacity and technology of manufacturing the bearings has been improved tremendously in the past few years. Now large capacity bearings and bearings which are capable of accommodating large movements are available in the market. The construction of large span bridges like cable stayed and suspension bridges are also affected by the choice of bearings and mean of effective load transfer to the substructure. Recently the conventional balanced cantilever bridges are made continuous for the span more than 550.0m. The construction of these long bridges is only possible by good and efficient bearings which can accommodate large movements and rotation.

The paper briefly discuss about different types of bearings normally used in bridges with their advantages and limitations. The bridge with bearings termed as bearing bridges is further compared with the integral bridges and the behaviour of bearing bridges and integral bridges is compared under different load combinations.