Elastomeric bearings are steel plate laminated rubber bearings installed between the hull of a vessel and its modules. They are used to accommodate axial, shear and rotational movement so they keep a vessel’s modules safe from impact, damage and deformation arising from adverse sea and weather conditions.

Trelleborg’s Elastomeric Bearings are most commonly used in Floating Production Storage Offloading (FPSO) vessels. They are a more efficient, cost-effective alternative to steel pot bearings as elastomers are an ideal maintenance-free material where energy absorption and vibration reduction combined with movement tolerance is required. Our Elastomeric Bearings are also being utilized in two of the world’s first Floating Liquefied Natural Gas (FLNG) vessels; Shell Prelude and the Petronas FLNG 1.

Our engineering teams employ modelling techniques to predict the stress versus strain characteristics and also the fatigue life of our bearings, as well as examining wave action and the resulting multi-directional loads between a vessel’s hull and its topside modules. This guarantees our bearings can continue to perform in many environments.

These bearings are specially designed to resist alternating movement in all three dimensions and large rotational movements in line with an FPSO’s longitudinal axis.