How to find the right Air Bearings AI guide
Written by an AI model from its trained knowledge.
What the AI looks for in Air Bearings
- Air supply quality
- Supply must be clean, dry and oil-free. Use coalescing filtration and a dryer ahead of the bearing, matched to the manufacturer's stated air-quality requirement. Air gaps are only a few microns, so oil, water or particles clog orifices or porous media and cause the bearing to touch down on the guide.
- Restrictor type
- Choose porous media (such as porous carbon) or orifice/groove-compensated designs to suit your crash tolerance and stiffness needs. Porous media spreads pressure evenly and tolerates a brief touchdown better. Orifice types can be stiffer but scratch the guide surface more easily on contact.
- Guide surface flatness and finish
- Guide flatness and finish should meet or beat the manufacturer's spec for the rated gap, typically lapped granite, ceramic or hardened ground steel. Surface errors larger than the air gap make the bearing contact the guide, so it loses its frictionless motion.
- Preload method
- Preload with an opposed bearing, vacuum or magnets. Size the preload to the stiffness you need, not only to the load. Air bearings are only stiff when preloaded. Without preload they float and bounce under changing loads.
- Rated supply pressure and flow
- Supply must match the bearing's rated pressure, with regulation at the point of use. Lift, stiffness and load capacity all scale with supply pressure. Too little pressure causes contact, and too much wastes air and can make the bearing unstable.
Brands that matter
- New Way Air Bearings: Porous-carbon flat pads, bushings and round bearings, widely used in motion stages and metrology.
- Specialty Components: Air bearing pads, spindles and slides for precision equipment.
- Physik Instrumente (PI): Complete air-bearing stages and rotary tables, not bare pads.
- Aerotech: Air-bearing linear and rotary stages for semiconductor and optics work.
What to avoid
- Running air bearings on standard shop compressed air with no oil and moisture removal.
- Buying a pad with no matching guide surface spec, or putting it on a machined rather than lapped surface.
- Using air bearings where the air could fail with no touchdown protection for the guide surface.
Questions
Do air bearings need lubrication?
No. The pressurized air film is the lubricant, and adding oil to the supply damages them.