Pontoon bridge using a single 'o'. The U.S. military differentiated between the bridge itself ("ponton") and the floats used to provide buoyancy ("pontoon"). The original word was derived from Old French "ponton", from Latin "ponto" ("ferryboat"), from "pons" ("bridge"). When designing a pontoon bridge, the civil engineer must take into consideration the Archimedes' principle: Each pontoon can support a load equal to the mass of the water that it displaces. This load includes the mass of the bridge and the pontoon itself. If the maximum load of a bridge section is exceeded, one or more pontoons become submerged. Flexible connections have to
GSL-class berthing pontoon intended for berthing vessels having displacement up to 40,000 tons on a jetty by serving as spacers between the jetty and the ship. They were built as part of an order to also construct one Service Barge Pontoon and four gangways. The request for proposal was issued on 7 March 2011 and the contract was signed on June 2011. By February 2013 all four pontoons had been delivered. Two pontoons were stationed at Naval Dockyard, Mumbai and two at the Naval Base in Karwar. GSL service barge pontoon GSL-class berthing pontoon The GSL class of jetty berthing pontoons are a