Record-breaking bridge

The 1915 Çanakkale Bridge spans a distance of more than 4 km across the Dardanelles strait in the north-west of the country. It forms part of a larger road construction project worth more than €3 billion.

“We’re excited to be part of this extraordinary endeavour,” says Andreas Borek of SKF. “We co-operated with DLSY JV, to analyse the requirements of bearings needed to overcome important obstacles in the project.” These include the need for the bearings to be corrosion-resistant due to the bridge’s coastal location. After carrying out salt-spray tests in its laboratory in Schweinfurt, SKF supplied bearings that were protected with a special surface coating technology.

The plain bearings that were produced in Schweinfurt, Germany are located at the top and bottom of the bridge’s vertical suspender cables. They help to transfer extensive loads from the bridge’s two main cables and its deck. At the same time, they accommodate radial, axial and diagonal micro-movements that occur between the bridge and its supporting cables.