DESIGN OF RUNNING-IN AEROSTATIC SPHERICAL BEARING WITH INHERENT COMPENSATION AND LARGE WRAP ANGLE

Abstract

Aerostatic spherical bearings can operate in places which requiring three degrees of freedom in rotation with a minimum of frictional drag. It is one of the key components of aerocraft motion simulator. With the development of large-scale simulation equipment, the requirement of aerostatic bearing with heavy-duty is widely and imminent. Compared with aerostatic spherical bearing with multi-orifices compensation, the bearing with inherent compensation and integrated socket is newly developed, and it has admirable stability in large scale of supply pressure. A new type of running-in aerostatic spherical bearing with inherent compensation and large wrap angle is designed and optimized. At the same time, the pressure and velocity field distributions in region of gas film are obtained by CFD software. Experimental results are proved that the bearing capacity of the new aerostatic spherical bearing is far improved than conventional one.