Step Response of Hydrostatic Thrust Bearings With a Self-Controlled Restrictor Employing a Floating Disk

This paper describes the step response of a hydrostatic thrust bearing with a self-controlled restrictor employing a floating disk. This type of bearing can achieve a very high static bearing stiffness by controlling the mass flow rate of the fluid entering the bearing clearance, using the floating disk. Many parameters affect the step-response characteristics of this type of bearings. Influences of each parameter on the step response are theoretically investigated, and theoretical and experimental results are compared in order to verify the theoretical predictions. It was consequently found that the step response of this hydrostatic thrust bearing with the self-controlled restrictor was stable over a wide range of values of design parameters.