A preliminary study of the load bearing capacity of a new foil thrust gas bearing

With the rapid development of high-speed, oil-free turbomachinery, more and more attention is concentrated on compliant aerodynamic foil bearings. However, the common corrugated bump foil forming the compliant structure is so complicated that manufacturing it is time-consuming and troublesome. In this article, a simple type of aerodynamic foil thrust gas bearing with an elastic hemispherical convex dot support configuration is first proposed. Then experimental investigations on stability and its load capacity characteristic for this foil thrust bearing were conducted on a multi-functional thrust bearing test rig. The preliminary measurement and analysis are presented through the wave and spectrum of axial displacement response in the time and frequency domain. It is demonstrated that the proposed bearing can operate well and has good stability in tests, and experimental results show that the axial load can reach 25 N when the rotational speed is about 114 200 r/min.