PSI - Issue 84

Available online at www.sciencedirect.com

ScienceDirect

Procedia Structural Integrity 84 (2026) 321–328

© 2026 The Authors. Published by ELSEVIER B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0) Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the Conference Keywords: Bridge bearings; neoprene; steel-Teflon; inspection; Bridge; Italian Guidelines. Abstract Bridge bearings play a critical role in ensuring the structural safety and durability of transport infrastructure, yet reliably inspecting them can be challenging due to both inherent operational difficulties and operators’ subjectivity and inconsistency. Learning from past inspection activities by duly capitalizing on the wealth of data that are available can provide a valuable contribution to overcoming these difficulties. This study reports an analysis of approximately 12,000 bearing records collected from 255 Italian bridges as part of an extensive research project aimed at the initial application and testing of the national Guidelines for bridge risk classification (LG2020). While the Project has enabled the creation of the most extensive database of bearing types and defects in Italy to date, the results also expose some weaknesses in current inspection protocols. For instance, the official inspection form lacks a dedicated field to record the bearing typology or additional defects such as specific degradation patterns related to steel Teflon sliding bearings, like bolt loosening or failure of dust protections, which are frequently observed but inadequately codified. Beyond the limitations in the standard provisions, the database analysis allowed us to observed and highlight a lack of standardization in inspection procedures and used photographic devices, affecting the image quality and suggesting homogenization actions devoted to reducing ambiguity and improve long-term infrastructure monitoring. The findings underscore that improving inspection quality is as essential as technological innovation in advancing bridge safety. III Fabre Conference: Existing Bridges, Viaducts, and Tunnels: Research, Innovation, and Applications Challenges and Proposals for Improvement in Bridge Bearings’ Inspection Activities: Insights from a Large-Scale Italian National Database Angelo Masi a , Giuseppe Santarsiero a * a University of Basilicata, Department of Engineering, via dell’Ateneo Lucano, 10, 85100 Potenza, Italy

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +390971205103; fax: +390971205070. E-mail address: giuseppe.santarsiero@unibas.it

2452-3216 © 2026 The Authors. Published by ELSEVIER B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0) Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the Conference 10.1016/j.prostr.2026.06.042