Circumferentially grooved hydrostatic gas thrust bearing (2nd report, Characteristics in high supply pressure and design in groove compensated operating region)

Abstract

The static and dynamic characteristics of a circumferentially grooved hydrostatic gas thrust bearing are numerically analyzed and an optimum design method is proposed for a high pressure region. For a supply pressure of less than 0.4 MPa (absolute), bearing parameters which maximize angular stiffness should be chosen, because the bearing can have positive damping. For a supply pressure of more than 0.4 MPa, the stabilized design in the groove compensated operating region with a feeding parameter high enough to make the parallel motion damping positive is recommended. Two design examples are shown for both large and small thrust bearings. The experimental results showed a fairly good agreement with the calculated ones, except for one datum regarding the instability threshold.