The scarce core
Gas Bearings
Aerostatic (orifice, slot-fed and porous), spiral-groove and narrow-groove gas bearings. This is the material with the fewest alternatives anywhere — there is no free calculator for spiral-groove bearings elsewhere, and general bearing suites do not cover aerostatic design.
Gas bearing design sits at the specialist end of precision engineering. The theory for spiral-groove bearings traces back to Muijderman’s narrow-groove work (Philips Research Reports, 1964); the aerostatic calculators here encode design relations that are otherwise scattered across out-of-print sources.
These tools are being migrated with particular care. Each is validated against the original before it is published, and marked clearly until it is.
Calculators
Aerostatic thrust bearing — simple orifice restrictorLoad capacity, stiffness, mass flow and orifice sizing for an aerostatic thrust bearing with a simple orifice restrictor. Unlocked from the legacy demo gate; general in its geometry.Aerostatic shallow-pocket thrust bearingLoad capacity, stiffness and flow for an aerostatic shallow-pocket thrust bearing, from the pocket and land pressure profiles. Unlocked from the legacy demo gate; general in its geometry.Aerostatic bearing — grouped inherent orificesDesign pressure ratio and load capacity for an aerostatic thrust bearing fed through grouped inherent orifices.Spiral-groove bearing (axial)Axial load capacity, stiffness, friction torque and power loss for a spiral-groove thrust bearing — a specialist calculation with essentially no free equivalent anywhere.Spiral-groove thrust bearing (design)Operating speed, friction torque and power loss for an axial spiral-groove thrust bearing carrying a given load, from the groove geometry and film thickness.Herringbone thrust bearing (design)Operating speed, friction torque and power loss for a herringbone-profile spiral-groove thrust bearing carrying a given load.