Product category:
Roofing and Roofllights
News Release from: Schaeffler (UK) | Subject: Berlin's New Main Station
Edited by the Buildingtalk Editorial
Team on 07 May 2004
INA Helps Put Roof Over Berlin's New
Main Station
Spherical plain bearings from the INA Bearing Company are part of the solution to keep the elaborate roof construction in place at the new main station 'Lehrter Bahnhof' in Berlin.
Great architectural designs often present special construction challenges This is certainly the case with elaborate roof constructions like the new main station 'Lehrter Bahnhof' in Germany's capital Berlin
This article was originally published on Buildingtalk on 23 Oct 2007 at 8.00am (UK)
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Spherical plain bearings from the INA Bearing Company are part of the solution to keep the structure in place.
'Lehrter Bahnhof', the new main station in Berlin, is being built in the centre of the city on the same site where the original Lehrter Bahnhof was opened in 1871 and will be the biggest hub in the German rail system.
By 2010, an estimated 50 million passengers will use the station every year.
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New X-life axial spherical roller bearings offer more than double the life even in harsh operating environments, including construction machinery, rolling mills and lifting gear.
Bearing solutions cut costs, power and weight
Schaeffler's range of bearings offers construction equipment manufacturers corrosion-resistant, maintenance-free, efficient, high performance solutions.
Every day, more than 750 passenger trains, one every 1.5 minutes, will pass through the station.
The station's roof is a glass sphere spanning the full length of the 430m long platform section.
Arching 66m across, it covers all of the six tracks.
The roof has been constructed to allow for train clearance resulting in a flat area at the crown and a steep area at the roof support.
The glass construction of the station building is being erected on a bridge and therefore needs special support in order to compensate for any vibration.
ELGES high-performance spherical plain bearings from INA help to support roof movements, which will invariably be caused by wind or changes in temperature.
ELGES spherical plain bearings are maintenance free and have a high load capacity.
Both features make the bearings ideally suited for complex roof constructions like the Berlin station as the extreme heights can pose a special maintenance problem.
The spherical plain bearings have also been made with an ELGOGLIDE lined bore securely fixed with a resin bond that is high strength and moisture resistant.
In addition to angular motion, this allows for longitudinal compensation motion of several millimetres compensating for temperature changes and expansions.
This means that wet weather, normally the main enemy of every bearing, does not impact on the bearings' performance because the sliding layer surface is moisture resistant and firmly bonded to the steel bearing inner ring.
ELGOGLIDE material has a high compressive strength and so does not tend to extrude even at high loads.
Lehrter Bahnhof is a state-of-the-art 21st century construction project.
This is demonstrated by a number of different elements, from the innovative roof construction with integrated solar collectors, to over 200 sensors monitoring the condition of all statically crucial building elements.
After more than ten years, the challenging construction project, which included diverting Berlin's main waterway the Spree for two years, is to be officially finished in time for the World Cup in 2006. Request a free brochure from Schaeffler (UK) ...
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