Experimental Study of New Aerodynamic
Complaint Foil Thrust Gas Bearing
Lin Shaoning,Li Jun,Zhu Zhaohui, Hou Yu,Chen Chunzheng
(Institute of Refrigeration and Cryogenic Engineering,Xi'an Jiaotong University,Xi'an
710049,China)
Abstract:A new aerodynamic compliant foil thrust gas bearing with elastic support is
proposed and developed. By theory analysis and numerical calculations, the main factors
that have effects on the bearing performances were discussed and the ranges of optimum
bearing parameters were obtained.The experimental study was conducted on the
multifunctional gas bearing test rig including stability,load capacity and operation
performance.The highest thrust bearing load of 25.9 N was obtained when s=0.25 mm,t=0.07
mm,b=0.7 and n=108 398 r/min in the experiments.The experimental results indicate that the
good damping characteristics of the elastic support material restrain the rotor¡¯s
vibration and the bearing surface effectively.In addition, new aerodynamic foil thrust gas
bearing with elastic support possesses good stability,operation capability and start-stop
performance.
Keywords:aerodynamic gas bearing;complaint foil;thrust bearing;experimental study