Research on the Mechanical Properties and Temperature Compensation of an Intelligent Pot Bearing for a Pipe-Type Welding Strain Gauge

As an important component connecting the upper and lower structures of a bridge, bridge bearings can reliably transfer vertical and horizontal loads to a foundation. Bearing capacity needs to be monitored during construction and maintenance. To create an intelligent pot bearing, a portable small spot welding machine is used to weld pipe-type welding strain gauges to the pot bearing to measure strain and force values. The research contents of this paper include the finite element analysis of a basin bearing, optimal arrangement of welding strain gauges, calibration testing, and temperature compensation testing of the intelligent basin bearing of the welding strain gauges. Polynomial fitting is used for the fitting and analysis of test data. The results indicate that the developed intelligent pot bearing has a high-precision force measurement function and that after temperature compensation, the measurement error is within 1.8%. The intelligent pot bearing has a low production cost, and the pipe-type welding strain gauges can be conveniently replaced. The novelty is that the bearing adopts a robust pipe-type welding strain gauge and that automatic temperature compensation is used. Therefore, the research results have excellent engineering application value.