Designing Aerostatic Bearing With Counterbalancing Gaps for Lifting a Heavy Payload

Abstract

An aerostatic bearing has been designed for supporting a heavy payload. The bearing involves an axial gap on the stator top that provides an upward lift, a bottom gap for counterbalancing the tendency of large lift-off, and a feeding orifice at the bearing inlet that is connected with the gaps by a network of holes or inherences yielding the damping. Notable contributions of the work are proving the concept by numerical simulation through first-principle order-separated modeling and evolving a simple solution strategy. The predicted vertical motion dynamics of the payload reveals that, depending on the target range of the payload weight, alternatives could be free or choked orifice designs.