Air bearing: academic insights and trend analysis

Abstract

The development of air bearing demands further research and certain guidance. The previous technical reviews focused on specific aspects, while bibliometric analysis employed in this paper gave a general overview on air bearing field and provided clearer research interest and development trend. The publications in the field of air bearing from 1990 to 2017 based on the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) database were analyzed from the aspects of countries, institutions, research areas, journals, authors, keywords, reviews, and high cited papers, implemented by some representative and convincing indicators. The result showed that the USA held the dominant position in this field, followed by Japan and China. The University of California System held the top position in terms of total papers and h-indexes. It had shown a multi-disciplinary development trend of air bearings from the aspect of research area. Tribology related journal took high ranking of the list, in which “Journal of Tribology-Transactions of the ASME” ranked first. Bogy, D. B., made most contributions to the air bearing field, with the highest total citations and h-index. Thermal effects, foil bearing, dynamic analysis, and active compensation were hotspots. Reynolds equation, stability, optimization, load-carrying capacity, foil bearings, and aerostatic bearings were potential directions that might have greater opportunities for improvement. The improvement of air bearing requires common progress in multiple aspects.