Designing the Partially Porous Journal Bearings of an Aerostatic Spindle
The aerostatic journal bearings are widely used in ultra-precision machine tools. Due to remarkable ability of the porous medium in flow restriction, the porous aerostatic journal bearings are better than other types of aerostatic bearings in load carrying capacity, stiffness, damping and dynamic stability. The partially porous aerostatic journal bearing has the advantages of easy production and low cost. Moreover, the gap between the porous insert and the spindle can be adjusted to reduce the eccentricity due to high speed rotation. In this study, the effects of the size of the porous insert and the thickness of the air gap between the spindle and the housing on the gap pressure, the stiffness and the load carrying capability of the partially porous aerostatic journal bearing were figured out for performance evaluation.