Effect of Steel Plate Thickness on the Stress-strain Behaviour of a Neoprene Bearing Pad

This paper describes the effect of internal reinforcing steel plate thickness on strain and stress distribution in bearing pad. For analysis, bearing pads with a single internal steel plate were considered to be two-dimensional mixed boundary value elastic problems. A numerical approach was taken in solving the boundary value problem, formulated in terms of potential displacement function. To study the effect of reinforcing plate thickness on the stress distribution in bearing pads, three different plate thicknesses were considered. The models were solved for certain compressive deformations of the bearing pad. Solutions have been analyzed and the results have been discussed with graphical presentations. Attempts have been made to find the optimum thickness of the steel plate and an optimum design principle has been established.