Q. What do you mean by Elastomeric bearings?
Steel bearings are good but suffer from problems of corrosion and high level of maintenance. Due to these problems of steel bearings, engineers were on the lookout for a bearing which could accomodate large movements and at the same time being relatively maintenance free. Elastomer as a material for making bridge bearing has been found to satisfy these requirements so much so that many engineers believe that the search for an ideal material for bridge bearing has come to an end. Further developments in future may involve refining the use of elastomer and enhancing its properties.
To summarise, the elastomeric bearings offer number of advantage as listed below:
1. Requires minimum maintenance compared to all other bearings.
2. Installation is easy.
3. Permits movement of the structure in all directions, depending upon the applied forces.
4. Occupies small space.
5. Serves as a shock absorber due to anti-vibra- tion properties of elastomer.
6. Acts as an aid to better dispersion of longitudinal forces to the approaches.