Low-Temperature Rise Water Hydrostatic Bearing for Precision Machine Tools

本项目是一项分析和实验的努力，以发展高性能静压轴承的设计理论，使用水作为流体介质。水为高精度机床的应用提供了一些重要的设计特性，例如非常低的温升。它还克服了传统上与油轴承有关的环境问题。需要解决的一些重要问题是，由于水的低粘度和腐蚀能力，水倾向于湍流。初步工作表明，使用某些类型的陶瓷和制造非常严格的公差轴承部件可以克服其中的一些问题。这些问题将在设计方法的发展中进一步调查和形式化。工业界对这个项目表现出了浓厚的兴趣，这将有助于将这些结果转化为实践。这项研究对我国装备工业具有重大意义。

This project is an analytical and experimental effort to develop the design theory for high performance hydrostatic bearings, using water as a fluid medium. Water offers some important design characteristics, such as very low temperature rise, for high precision machine tool applications. It also overcomes the environmental issues that are traditionally related to oil bearings. Some of the significant issues that need to be addressed are waters tendency to turbulent flow, because of its low viscosity and its ability to corrode. Preliminary work has shown that some of these can be overcome using certain types of ceramics and manufacturing the bearing components to very tight tolerances. These issues will be further investigated and formalized in the development of the design methodology. A keen interest in this project has been exhibited by industry, which should assist in the transfer of these results into practice. This research is of significant interest to the nation's equipment industry.