Aerostatic radial bearing — partially grooved surface

Eccentric load capacity and gas mass flow for a partially grooved (symmetric) radial aerostatic bearing, integrated over the groove pattern around the bearing.

✓ validated against legacyoriginal: /calculators/e14_9.htm

Aerostatic radial bearing — partially grooved surface — original diagram from /calculators/e14_9.htm

Shaft diameter, DmmSupply pressure, pₛ1e5 PaAmbient pressure, pₐ1e5 PaViscosity, η1e-6 Pa·sGas constant, Rm²/(s²·K)Temperature, TKBearing clearance ratio, dR/RNumber of grooves, kBearing length ratio, L₀/DGroove length ratio, L₁/L₀Groove width ratio, B₁/B₀Groove depth ratio, h₁/h₀Eccentricity ratio, ε = e/dR

Pressure ratio, β₀ (ε=0)0.616696923607941

Dimensionless load, F′(ε)0.1493367258624423

Load capacity, F(ε)29.86734517248846 N

Mass flow, ṁ(ε)591.7923779649781 1e-6 kg/s

No login lock; fully general. The final output lines apply an extra ×2 to both Fb and Mb on top of the ×2 already applied to Mb right after the summation loop — this looks redundant but is preserved exactly as in the original.

Method & references

Partially grooved (symmetric) radial aerostatic bearing — sum over groove-pitch stations of the local recess pressure ratio and pocket flow, evaluated at the given eccentricity ratio.

The computation is a literal port of the original client-side JavaScript from /calculators/e14_9.htm. Results are verified equal to the original by an automated golden-master test. No formula has been re-derived or “improved”.

Aerostatic radial bearing — partially grooved surface — Engineering ABC