Bearing pad
AssigneeFabreeka International Holdings, Inc.
InventorLuis De Jesus
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A resilient bearing pad or support includes resilient material and a sensor that is configured to measure one or more of acceleration, velocity, variations in load, etc. of a mass supported by the bearing pad. The sensor may be configured to wirelessly transmit data for storage and/or evaluation. The data may be evaluated utilizing predefined criteria to detect and/or predict failure of the pad and/or a mass supported by the pad.
Claims22
A support system for building structures and bridge structures that are immovably supported on stationary base structures, the support system comprising:
- a resilient pad having an upper side that is configured to engage a surface of a building structure or a surface of a bridge structure, and a lower side that is configured to engage a stationary base structure to support a building structure or a bridge structure whereby a dimension between the upper and lower sides changes as a result of changing loads being applied to the upper and lower sides;
- a sensor that generates displacement data due to changes in the dimension between the upper and lower sides when changing loads are applied to the upper and lower sides of the resilient pad;
- and
- a computing device that is configured to utilize the displacement data to:
- 1) determine if the displacement data indicates that structural degradation meeting predefined structural failure criteria for the building structure or the bridge structure is imminent or has occurred, and/or:
- 2) determine a predicted lifespan of the building or bridge structure based on a predicted structural failure of the building or bridge structure.
A support system comprising:
- a resilient pad having first and second opposite sides that are configured to engage two surfaces to support a building structure or a bridge structure, or an immovable stationary base structure;
- a sensor that generates sensor data responsive to loads applied to at least one of the first and second opposite sides of the resilient pad;
- a computing device that is configured to utilize the sensor data to:
- 1) determine if the sensor data indicates that degradation meeting predefined failure criteria for at least one of the resilient pad and the structure is imminent or has occurred, and/or:
- 2) determine a predicted lifespan of the resilient pad and/or the structure;
- and
- the computing device is configured to determine a predicted lifespan of the building structure or the bridge structure by comparing measured loads and numbers of cycles to a predicted number of cycles at which structural failure of the building structure or the bridge structure would occur at the measured loads.
A method of monitoring a structure, the method comprising:
- positioning a plurality of resilient pads on a stationary base structure;
- supporting a structure on the plurality of resilient pads, the plurality of resilient pads having sensors configured to measure at least one parameter related to forces acting on the resilient pads;
- utilizing a predefined relationship between the measured parameter and a predicted structural degradation of the structure to determine at least one of structural degradation of the structure and a predicted structural failure of the structure due to structural degradation of the structure, wherein:
- the structure is substantially stationary other than movement of the structure relative to the stationary base structure due to deformation of one or more of the resilient pads.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.