TY - GEN A1 - Wetzk, Volker A1 - Schüle, Patrick ED - Van Balen, Koen ED - Verstrynge, Els T1 - Assessing historic bridge bearings – The potential of hardness measurements for characterizing cast steel T2 - Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Structural Analysis of Historical Constructions (SAHC, Leuven, Belgium, 13-15 September 2016) N2 - In the context of the ongoing efforts to maintain historic bridges still in use the corresponding bearings made from historic iron or steel have re-entered the perception of engineers. For the structural assessment of the bearings it is essential to find a procedure that allows for identifiying the material properties, while being minimally invasive at the same time. However, in particular the investigation of cast steel, which had become the material most widely employed for bearings by the end of the 19th century, has been largely neglected in technical literature until now. The paper presents results of hardness measurements to determine the tensile strength of bridge bearings made from cast steel. The emphasis was on finding the appropriate measurement method and to define requirements with regard to an adequate surface preparation. The tests showed that hardness measurements with the Leeb-method yield very good results for assessing the tensile strength of historic bearings material. The investigations were part of a research project performed at BTU Brandenburgische Technische Universität in co-operation with BAM Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing in Berlin and were funded by the DFG German Research Foundation. The tests to evaluate the potential of hardness measurements were carried out at and supported by the BLOCK Materialprüfungsgesellschaft mbH Berlin. KW - Bridge Bearings KW - Bearings KW - Hardness KW - Brückenlager KW - Lager Y1 - 2016 SN - 978-1-138-02951-4 SP - 828 EP - 831 PB - Taylor & Francis CY - London ER -