Characteristics Estimation of Porous Air Bearing
Ng, S.W., Widdowson, G.P., Yao, S.
ASM Assembly Automation Ltd., Kwai Chung, N.T., HONG KONG
Due to its “almost-zero-friction” characteristics, air bearings are usually used in precision machines.
In this study, FEMLAB is used to determine the static characteristics of a given porous air bearing design. The non-standard boundary condition can be readily modeled by the coupling capability of FEMLAB. In order to examine the validity of the present approach, the numerical result obtained on a square air bearing is compared against the experiment one. On the other hand, comparison is also made with another independent numerical result on a circular air bearing found in literature.
It is found that good agreement is obtained in both comparisons.