Design analysis and experimental study of aerostatic linear guideways used in a high acceleration and high precision xy stage

Abstract

Profiting from its low friction, non-hysteresis, ease of manufacture and high motion accuracy, air bearings have been widely used in various precision or ultra-precision low acceleration stages. In this paper, a high acceleration and high precision xy stage using aerostatic linear guideways is designed and manufactured to meet the requirements of chip manufacturing equipment. During the design of these guideways, the parameters, such as orifice diameter, distribution of orifices and film thickness are determined by calculating load carrying capacity, tilt stiffness, and mass flowrate of the guideways using the finite-element method. The experimental results show that the performance of these guideways coincides very well with that of the numerical calculations and satisfies the requirements of the stage.