Page 4 of catalogue Bearing Supports in Buildings and Structures of Schaeffler Technologies GmbH & Co. KG

Bridges

Do you really want to lubricate bascule bridges?

Of course not, but they must work properly, because there’s hardly any time for maintenance work when a major traffic route such as the harbor bridge in Barcelona has to open several times a day to let ship traffic through. This means extremely heavy work for the bearing positions in the movable bridge segments. Each bridge section has a length of 70 meters and a weight of 2 000 tons.

Regardless whether it is a double bascule bridge, as in this example, or Hydraulic, balance or swing bridge design, the situation definitely calls for high-performance plain bearings with Elgoglide®, because they’re maintenance-free. Elgoglide® bearings are low-friction, high load capacity dry plain bearings that are particularly suitable for oscillating motion. The reason: Dynamic load

ratings are very high in relation to the low bearing weight. The attribute “high performance”, by the way, has not been added to the name without conducting the proper testing. In a test on this bearing, we applied a dynamic load of up to 600 N/mm2. This corresponds to 200 % of the dynamic load ratings given in the catalog, which demonstrates that there is a great deal of performance to spare. We can also provide you with the necessary application reliability for your design.

Barcelona. The world’s largest double bascule bridge pivots on maintenance-free large spherical plain bearings with bore diameters of 670 mm.

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