Static performance of hydrostatic air bump foil bearing

A few years ago, a hydrostatic air foil bearing using compression springs as elastic foundation was firstly introduced by Kim and Park [1]. This paper presents recent experimental results on load capacity of a new hydrostatic air foil bearing made of corrugated bump foils. The new hydrostatic air foil bearing was designed with higher structural stiffness than the first design by Kim and Park [1]. A new test rig was also designed and constructed to measure load capacity of the bearing at higher speeds. The new test results indicate the hybrid operation has similar load capacity to that of hydrodynamic operation at high speeds due to dominance of hydrodynamic pressure. However, comparative tests at low speed (10,000 rpm) showed noticeable increase of load capacity in hydrostatic air foil bearing, manifesting effective hydrostatic levitation feature at low speeds.