Substructure

Reporters: Bisa, Chang, M., Lanozo

 A bridge is a structure built to span physical obstacles without
closing the way underneath such as a body of water, valley,
Bridge or road, for the purpose of providing passage over the
obstacle, usually something that can be detrimental to cross
otherwise. 
 Most bridges can be divided into three basic parts or
components:
 Foundation
 Superstructure
Major Bridge
 Substructure
Components
Each of these core areas have other parts within them. Piles
and pile caps are constructed as the foundation of the bridge.
The sub-structure includes piers and abutments, while the
superstructure includes the girders, bearings and deck.
Major Bridge
Components
 Bridge
Components
 Bridge
Components
 Foundation are structures constructed to transmit the load
from the piers, abutments, wing walls and the returns evenly
on the strata.
Foundation  Piles
 Caps
 Bents
 The superstructure of the bridge structure consists of deck
slab, girder, truss etc. These components vary based on the
type of bridge (whether concrete or steel or composite).
Superstructure of the bridge bears the load passing over it.
This helps in transmitting the forces formed by the loads to
the below substructures.
 Girders
Superstructure  Bearings
 Trusses
 Decks
 Barriers
 Arches
 Substructures supports the superstructure and which transfers
the structural load to the foundations.
The components involved in substructure of bridges are:
Substructure  Piers
 Abutment
 Wing wall and the returns
 The piers are vertical structures used to support deck or the
bearings provided for load transmission to underground soil
through foundation. These structures serve as supports for
the bridge spans at intermediate points.
Piers The pier structure has mainly two functions:
1. Load transmission to the Foundation
2. Resistance to the horizontal forces
Piers
 Abutments are vertical structures used to retain the earth
Abutments behind the structure. The dead and the live loads from the
bridge superstructure is supported by the bridge abutments.
Abutments
 Wing walls are structures constructed as an extension of the
Wing wall and abutments to retain the earth present in the approach bank.
the returns
Wing wall and
the returns
 Bridge bearings are structural
equipment or devices installed
between bridge substructure
Bearings and superstructure to transfer
the applied load including
earthquake loads; wind loads;
traffic loads; and superstructure
self-weight.
  Permit lateral movements due to temperature change,
traffic movements, wind, shrinkage and creep, foundation
movement, seismic actions, dynamic forces and resulting
Bearing vibrations.
Function  Transmitting load to substructure foundations
 Accommodate girder rotation
 Support vertical loads
  SLIDING BEARINGS
 ROCKER AND PIN BEARINGS
 ROLLER BEARINGS
Types of  ELASTOMERIC BEARINGS
Bearings  CURVED BEARINGS
 POT BEARINGS
 DISC BEARINGS
 Sliding bearing consist of two metal plates, commonly
stainless-steel plates, that slide relative to each other and
hence makes room for translational movement and
lubricating material between them as illustrated in Figure-1.
Sliding
Bearings
 Rocker Bearings Pin Bearings
Rocker is an expansion bearing Pin bearing is a fixed bearing that
composed of curved surface at make room for rotation movement
the bottom, which through the application of steel pin.
accommodate translational It has similar structure and
movement and a pin at the top component like rocker bearing apart
Rocker & Pin makes room for rotation from the bottom of pin bearing
movement as illustrated Figure-
Bearings 2 and Figure-3 in detail.
which is flat and fixed to the concrete
pier, as can be observed in Figure-4.
 Roller bearing can be used in the construction of reinforced
concrete and steel bridge structure. There are two main
configurations including single roller bearing which is composed of
one roller placed between two plates and multiple roller bearing
that consist of several rollers installed between two plates.

Roller
Bearings
 It consists of elastomer manufactured from synthetic or natural
rubber and can take both translation and rotation movements
through elastomer deformation. The ability of elastomer to
carry large vertical loads is because of reinforcement provision
Elastomeric that prevents lateral bulging of elastomer.

Bearings
 It consists of two curved plate that match each other as
shown in Figure 8. If curved bearing is cylindrical, then it only
accommodates rotation movements. However, both rotation
and translational movements can be dealt with if curved
bearing is spherical.

Curved
Bearings
 Pot bearing can support considerable vertical loads and it is
commonly transferred through steel piston to the elastomeric
disc which is almost incompressible. As far as lateral load is
concerned, it is transferred as the steel pistol moves toward
pot wall.

Pot Bearings
 Disc Bearings have been extensively used on railroad bridges
as well as highway bridges. The Disc Bearing with its
Polyurethane Disc element gives a cushioning effect,
durability and is designed to handle the excessive live loads,
often present in railroads.

Disc Bearings
The End 