Simulation of air gap vibration on aerostatic bearing under flow/structure coupled conditions

The vibration of aerostatic bearing air gap is one of the main factors, which restricts the precision of nano-processing and nano-measurement. Finite volume method was employed to obtain the air gap steady flow of different air gap thicknesses for the demonstration of vibrations under flow/structure coupled conditions. The unsteady flow of air gap was analyzed numerically by using the air gap flow & boundary movement control equations to get the pressure distribution on the slide surface and the amplitude of air gap for further study on the self-excited vibration of aerostatic bearings. Numerical analyses show that the highest aerostatic bearing amplitude is relative to the difference between load capacity and gravity at the initial moment as air gap rises, and the final air gap thickness has nothing to do with the initial air gap thickness. The results presented a new analytic demonstration for the research on the reduction of aerostatic bearing vibration.