Steel and concrete structures employ Herculon type D Sliding Guided Bearings, including this pedestrian bridge incorporated into the Royal North Shore Hospital redevelopment. Smaller bridge construction and maintenance can benefit from cost-efficient Herculon type D sliding bearings in capacities up to 60 tons per bearing. The ability to provide cost-efficient and maintenance-free solutions to such issues is especially important to road and pedestrian access projects demanding high safety, such as those undertaken in metropolitan infrastructure projects, including health and carpark facilities. Such capabilities are also important in remote area service vehicle and pedestrian access facilities, such as those providing supply, exploration and service routes to mining and energy and oil and gas projects, where movement within access structures is caused by factors such as climate, changing uses and delivery of plant including conveyors, motors, turbines and reticulation systems. “Low maintenance is equally important also to government authorities as they face demands 20 November 2016 from local businesses to refurbish and renew private and public regional infrastructure,” says Mr David Booty, manager, Hercules Engineering (a division of Cut To Size Plastics). “It is estimated* that there are more 30,000 timber and concrete bridges maintained by local authorities, for example, of which more than a quarter are in poor or fair condition.” Many of these are smaller road bridges or pedestrian walkways or bridges and could benefit from a no-maintenance, cost-efficient solution provided by Hercules Engineering through its range of Herculon Type D Bearings (HLD/SG, HLD/FF & HLD/FX), which are widely proven on applications ranging from steel and concrete beam engineering structures through to materials handling and processing facilities. Herculon HLD bearings are part of a comprehensive range of Hercules composite slip joints and structural bearings incorporating engineered high performance combinations of engineered thermoplastics and stainless steel facing surfaces. They are engineered to minimise downtime and maintenance by accommodating the vertical and horizontal stresses imposed by the shuddering and vibration of varying loads. “Among the big plusses of HLD Bearings, compared with more sophisticated and expensive heavy alternatives such as pot bearings and roller bearings, are benefits such as lower initial cost, easier installation and no maintenance for periods of 30 years or more,” says Mr Booty. “Larger bridge structures P R E V E N T A T I V E M A I N T E N A N C E MAINTENANCE-FREE HERCULON SLIDING GUIDED BEARINGS ANSWER CHALLENGES A challenge facing builders and operators of thousands of smaller bridges throughout Australasia is ensuring such structures can flexibly and cost-efficiently cope with internal movement and stresses caused by changing loads, vibration, thermal expansion and other common attritional factors.
EN-Nov16
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