Monitoring bridge bearings based on rubber-based composite materials

To improve the real-time monitoring capability of bridge structure safety, intelligent bridge bearings were prepared based on rubber based composite materials. The study selected T4/3-5 intelligent rubber bearings and conducted a systematic experimental analysis on their response characteristics under different loading speeds and holding states. By measuring the displacement and resistance changes of the intelligent bearings under various load conditions, their sensitivity and stability were evaluated. These experiments confirmed that the T4/3-5 intelligent rubber bearings exhibited a total creep deformation of approximately 1 mm and 1.5 mm under loads of 60 kN and 45 kN, respectively. This suggests that the molecular chains reach a relatively stable configuration under high loads and are not prone to further changes. Moreover, the resistance reduction ratio under a load of 60 kN is approximately 0.57, while under a load of 45 kN it is approximately 0.62, indicating that nickel powder particles in the composite material form a more stable conductive network after molecular rearrangement. At different loading rates, the displacement-load and load-resistance curves of the bearings show consistent trends, and the creep and resistance relaxation behaviors exhibit certain regularity with the concentration of load size. Through the analysis of these data, the study elucidated the resistance change mechanism in the bearings and validated the feasibility of intelligent bearings as a real-time load monitoring tool.