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Air Bearing: Appendix 1
Air Bearing: Appendix 1
AIR BEARING
SEMINAR REPORT
Submitted by
THESIYA YOGESH
BONAFIDE CERTIFICATE
Certified that this project report “AIR - BEARING” is the
In particular it must be recognized that air bearings of practically every type are somewhat
more prone to instability difficulties than are liquid bearings, although most of these
instabilities are to a huge extent the same general type that occur in liquid-lubricated
systems; for example, the important case of half-speed whirl in self-acting 360 degree
journal. Pressurized bearings also have their instability problems although these are
sometimes of a very different type.
Generally every application, involving rotating member uses
bearings. A bearing is a machine element that constrains relative
motion to only the desired motion, and reduces friction between
moving parts.
Bearings are also used to support the shafts but above two
functions are very important.
Fig.1.2 Bearing which is used generally.
Bearings are classified broadly according to the type of
operation,the motions allowed, or to the directions of the loads
(forces) applied to the parts.
There are at least 6 common types of bearing, each of which
operates on different principles:
pressure.
4. When the pressure becomes large enough, the resulting
force causes the upper element to move a small
distance away from the stationary element until static
equilibrium is reached.
5. This air gap distance is determined by the amount of
total load applied and fluid pressure within the
separation; a larger pressure results in a larger separation.
In general, aerodynamic bearings suffer from decreased load carrying capacity. In addition,
the zero-load at zero speed effect causes starting and stopping friction and may result in
some wearing of the air bearing surfaces. Notwithstanding some of the disadvantages, self-
acting bearings have found widespread industrial use. The most ubiquitous example may
be the magnetic read/write heads of a disk-based hard drive memory storage device. In
this case, a flat thrust-load carrying air film is created between the disk surface and the
head. An armature positions and lightly preloads the flat head against the surface while a
motor provides relative motion by spinning the magnetic disk. As pressure builds, the head
elevates above the disk surface. As hard drive technology has improved, the distance at
which the air bearing head flies has been reduced to as small as 3 nanometers. This gap is
about 30,000 times thinner than the average thickness of a sheet of notebook paper. Small
air gaps present fabrication difficulties which are discussed in the Manufacturing
Challenges section below.
The aerodynamic air bearing's principle advantage is its ability to act without an external
pressure source. The load capacity is limited by the area of the bearing and the relative
velocity of the mating surface. Therefore, aerodynamic air bearings can be applied in
limited cases:
1. Where the application requires lack of an external pressure source
2. Where the application requires only small load capacities relative to the size of the air
bearing.
While hydrodynamic bearings are common for oil fluid film bearings, which generate internal
pressures quite easily due to the relatively high viscosity of oil, it is much rarer to see this technique
used for air bearings because the pressure generated is quite low (although Nelson Air has built
bearings of this type for low load, high speed rotary applications such as optical scanners).
The load capacity of aerostatic air bearings is limited only by the supply pressure and the
strength of the mechanical components. Remarkably, when designed correctly, air bearings
can support multi-ton loads without friction or wear of the mating surfaces.
The manner in which the pressurized gas is admitted to the gap further divides the
aerostatic category into a few different types:
1. Porous surface
2.Partial porous surface
3.Discrete Orifice feeding
4.Slot feeding
5. Groove feeding
Our typical air bearings are hydrostatic (or in our case
aerostatic) and use a compressed air supply to create the fluid film.
This supply should be clean and regulated to a constant pressure
- simple off the shelf air handling components are more than
adequate for most applications to clean, dehumidify, and regulate
the supply. Typical operating pressures run as low as 20 psi up to
120 psi depending on the stiffness, load capacity, and air
consumption requirements.
The main advantage of a hydrostatic air bearing is that even
at little or no movement, there is no friction. This is what gives the
bearing ultra high repeatability and indefinite lifetime.
Hydrodynamic air bearings do not require any external air supply.
However, they have the issue of friction and wear until sufficient
velocity is attained to create the air gap.
There are some other types of air bearings which are may be
aerostatic or aerodynamic in nature.
5.2 Conventional Air bearings
With conventional single nozzle air bearings, the compressed air
flows through a few relatively large nozzles (diameter 0.1 – 0.5 mm)
into the bearing gap. The air consumption thus allows only some
flexibility such that the bearing’s features (force, moments, bearing
surface, bearing gap height, damping) can be adjusted only
The micro nozzles are automatically drilled with a laser beam that
provides top-quality and repeatability. The physical behaviors of
the air bearings prove to have a low variation for large as well as
for small production volumes. In contrast to conventional bearings,
with this technique the air bearings require no manual or costly
manufacturing.
5.1 Materials
In order to manufacture air bearing surface geometries to sub-
micron accuracy, rigid metals, ceramics or other similar materials
often comprise the housing and/or static components. In addition,
long-term material stability is an unconditional requirement if high
repeatability is to be achieved. By no means an exhaustive list,
the materials shown below have been used as air bearing
components and surfaces.
Hardcoated aluminum
Steel, stainless steel
Brass/bronze
Glass
Nickel
Invar
Macor
PEEK
Ceramic
Graphite
Carbon
Granite
5.2 why we use air?
While most people are familiar with oil fluid film bearings - for
example the crankshaft journal bearings in car engines - most
people have not been exposed to air
Why we use air (instead of
bearings. Remembering our high school oil):
Air is clean, contaminant free
physics class, there are two basic types Zero friction - no heat
of fluids - liquids and gasses. In terms of generation at high speeds
Small bearing gap means
fluid film bearings, the difference high accuracy components,
between these two is essentially the high accuracy motion
Air nitrogen of any other
viscosity - liquids have much higher gas can be used
viscosity than gasses. When applied to a fluid film bearing, this
difference has a number of implications.
First, lower viscosity means that for the same working
pressure gas bearings have lower load capacity (liquid fluid film
bearings typically support five times the load of gas bearings for
the same pad area).
Second, because of the extremely low viscosity of gasses,
gas film bearings operate with essentially zero static and running
friction where liquid fluid film bearings have much higher friction
and pumping losses within the bearings, which can cause heat
generation. And third, gas bearings require very tight bearing
gaps for proper operation (10 µm for gas compared to up to 100
µm for liquid bearing) which translates into extremely high
accuracy requirements on the components.
What this means for air bearings is that although they have a
lower load capacity, gas bearings have essentially zero friction at
all speeds and because the tight bearing clearances demand high
accuracy components this results in extremely high accuracy
motion. Another benefit is the cleanliness of using air as a
lubricating fluid as opposed to oil, water, or another fluid. Since
compressed air is very common in industrial environments it is
probably the most often used gas, however other gasses such as
nitrogen can be used where they are available (such as in clean
room environments).
5.2 How does the air get into the bearing?
After entering the bearing and being routed though internal
passages, the next step is to feed the pressurized air to where it
is needed - namely directly into the bearing gap. There are two
basic ways to accomplish this, orifices and porous media. For
orifices, the air flows through a small hole (typically .004" to .015"
dia.) into the bearing area. Porous media bearings use a porous
material (typically carbon, bronze, or steel) which the air
penetrates through into the bearing area.
The relative benefits of each approach are debatable. While
orifices typically do not generate as uniform a pressure profile as
can be achieved with porous media, there are ways to improve
the pressure profile using a technique called "pocketed
compensation". Porous media feeding provides more inherent
damping than orifices, however proper sizing of the orifices can
It is safe to say: air bearings are not suitable for all applications but when they are used
effectively, each prescription has some common characteristics. Generally, it is advisable to
use air bearings when one or more of the following is an application requirement:
1. nanometric repeatability and/or accuracy
2.frictionless motion
3.zero stiction
4.zero backlash
5.zero wear of the mating surfaces
6.high speed and high acceleration
7.low or near-zero particle emission
bearing pressures are 40-80 psi the net effect is still a lifting of the
6.2.2 vacuum preloaded
bearing, even when the bearing and vacuum areas are equal.
Vacuum preload enhances the stiffness and helps to maintain
constant air gap, without adding unnecessary moving mass. The
main drawbacks to this method are the need for a larger bearing
area to accommodate both pressure and vacuum and the
requirement of a vacuum source. This method has been used
successfully in many applications, especially for flat pads and
planar systems which do not lend themselves to other forms of
preload.
The third method of preloading is magnetic preload. Magnetic
attraction between a magnet on the moving part and a magnetic
material on the stationary part of the bearing loads the bearing and
1.Low Friction
Of the more important exclusive advantages which are offered by air lubrication are those
cases where the low viscosity of gases as compared with liquids can be exploited to special
benefit. Particularly straightforward examples of this class of application are those which
occur in near-static apparatus such as gimbal support, dynamometers, wind-tunnel
balances and other specialized mechanical instruments which benefit from the extremely
low static frictional torque which externally pressurized bearings can offer. The use of a gas
permits a torque orders of magnitude smaller than could be achieved by liquids, but
perhaps in practice often of more importance is the fact that a low-torque bearing with an
appropriately large operating clearance can be made in a very simple and clean fashion
using gas lubrication. Air is usually employed, since the exhaust from the bearing can be
released to the surroundings and quite large flow rates can be employed.
In semiconductor machine tools, high-speed, acceleration and damping are key to product
throughput. The use of air bearings in such an application has found widespread use.
Experimental high speed linear slides of a composite lightweight structure have operated
at 14g acceleration for thousands of hours or repeated because of the low friction aspects
of air bearings. A mechanical rolling element-type bearing would never be able to satisfy
such a requirement. This low friction also finds uses in torque measuring equipment,
dynamic balancing machinery, semiconductor positioning systems, micro or zero gravity
trajectory simulators and other instruments requiring near-static conditions.
2.High Accuracy
The high accuracy of motion that can be obtained with air bearings is equally important in
some applications. Considerable differences in motion accuracy exist between rolling
element bearing supports and air bearing supports. In linear slides, for example, rolling
element bearings witness noise error (or rumbling) due to the ways' surface roughness
and/or eccentric rotation of the rollers or balls.
On the contrary, air bearings do not suffer from this difficulty. The reason for this lies in the
absence of surface contact between the bearing parts and the averaging action of the air
film over the various local surface irregularities present in the machined surfaces. Even the
finest of rolling element bearings are orders of the magnitude less accurate than air
bearings. In rotating air bearings, this effect produces high orders of rotational accuracy
and smoothness of travel. Typical T.I.R. for air bearing spindles are less than 1.0 µinch. For
linear slides, pitch, roll and yaw errors of much less than a fraction of an arc second are
attainable and straightness of travel errors on the order of nanometers have been achieved.
3.High Stiffness
At zero speed, air bearings provide considerably high stiffness characteristics. This same
effect is seen at zero or low loads. For properly designed and manufactured aerostatic
bearings, it is not uncommon to measure stiffness on the order of several million pounds
per inch.
4.Zero Wear
The advantage of zero wear can be seen greatly in externally pressurized or aerostatic
bearings and to some large degree in self-acting or aerodynamic bearings. Although some
properly designed rolling element bearings can achieve practical wear rates, none can
match the zero wear characteristic of aerostatic bearings. With aerodynamic bearings,
starting and stopping causes some rubbing within the bearing clearance, but this can be
alleviated by introducing a pulse of air just as the bearing begins translation. Furthermore,
as compared with rolling element bearings, air bearings do not suffer from increased wear
rates as the speed or load is increased. With proper care and maintenance, infinite life can
be expected from air bearings.
4.Contamination
Perhaps the most exclusive quality of gases as lubricants is their potential for operation
over extremely wide ranges of temperature. Indeed, it is the invulnerability of the solid
components of the machine, not that of the lubricant, which will set performance limits
when simple gases are used for high temperature lubricated applications, although at the
lower end of the temperature scale condensation of the gas may become a limitation.
Complex gases on the other hand will have decomposition limitations at the upper end of
their usable temperature range. No difficulty is seen, for example, at the hot end end of the
scale, in operating the bearings of small steam turbines or circulators upon superheated
steam, and, at the cold end, gases approaching their liquefaction temperatures could be
employed to lubricate the bearings of, for instance, gas liquefying turbines. In both
examples considerable simplification of design could thus be achieved in some situations. It
is noted that whereas with liquids bearing performance falls off with rise of temperature
due to fall in viscosity, in the case of gases, the load-carrying performance will in general
improve due to a rise in viscosity.
5.environmental advantage
Nowadays the air bearing’s popularity increases even in industries other than the classical air
bearing industries as it does not make any use of mineral oil-based or synthetic lubricants.