Frictional characteristics of an aerostatic linear bearing

Frictional characteristics of an aerostatic linear bearing are evaluated in detail by means of a developing method. In the method, the resultant force acting on the moving part of the bearing is measured highly accurately as the inertial force using an optical interferometer. The velocity dependence of dynamic friction is focused on in this paper. The component of dynamic frictional force, which is almost independent of the absolute value of velocity, is detected in the experiment, in addition to the force component that is proportional to velocity. Before this study, dynamic frictional force had only been explained as the viscous frictional force acting inside the air film, which is proportional to the velocity.