Bearings for high-speed rotors are the key component of dental handpieces. The friction induced by conventional ball bearings restricts its speed and reduces its efficiency. In order to significantly improve the efficiency of dental handpieces, a mini-type cartridge that integrates a turbine and a spindle with radial aerostatic bearings and axial passive magnetic bearings has been ingeniously designed and realized. Around the rotating spindle, there is a high-pressured air film built up by a pair of radial aerostatic bearings, and magnet rings are applied to create repulsive forces to axially support the rotating spindle. The high-pressured air film comes from the specifically designed separable orifice restrictors, which can be easily and precisely manufactured. Frictionless bearing effect can be achieved by aerostatic principle, and the magnetic principle is applied to create large repulsive force against the axial working force. A tri-directional air inlet is designed to reduce radial loading force of a spindle during working. The modularized form of the magneto-aerostatic bearing allows it to be easily assembled and replaced in the very compact space of a mini-type cartridge.
Through analytical simulations with fluid-dynamics software (CFD) and experiments, the magneto-aerostatic bearing is optimized to bring out efficient performance in its limited space. The experiments have verified that its noise level is 15dB lower than the conventional cartridge with ball bearings, and its startup air pressure is reduced from 0.4 bar to 0.1 bar. Under the same operation conditions, the newly developed cartridge with magneto-aerostatic bearings creates twice higher speed than that of the conventional one.
