• Journal of computational fluids engineering
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.62-67
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• 2008

This study aims to investigate numerically the static stiffness characteristics of porous air bearing and to estimate appropriate permeability values of porous medium. In particular, a new roughness model is proposed and implemented into the commercial CFD code (FLUENT Ver. 6.2) by using C language based user subroutine. The predicted results are extensively compared with experimental data. The roughness model is also validated through comparison with the results from open literature. It is found that the predictions for static stiffness are in good agreement with experimental data. Therefore, the suggested model based on the roughness Reynolds number can be used in studying the stiffness characteristics of porous air bearing effectively. In addition, numerical simulations of various diameter size and conditions are conducted. According the results, it is expected that the static stiffness of porous air bearing has the non-linear characteristics.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.75-78
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• 2005

In this paper, an experimental study on porous air bearing stiffness for ultra precision positioning system was performed. In general manufacturer provide bearing stiffness under specific air pressure, but the air pressure used in the field is different. Therefore it is necessary to know the stiffness of air bearing under the pressure used in the field. In order to know that, experimental device which can realize actual operating conditions was made. Using this device, static and dynamic stiffness of air bearing can be obtained. As a result, displacement error occurred around 1 $\mu$m at recommended load.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2003.06a
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• pp.355-358
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• 2003

This paper presents characteristics of vacuum preloaded porous air bearing. Pressure distribution of a porous pad and vacuum pocket are calculated. And load capacity and stiffness of the bearing are analyzed with various vacuum parameters, that is. clearance height. tube diameter, tube length. pumping speed of vacuum pump, vacuum pocket to porous pad area ratio. From the simulation results, optimum clearance for best performance can be selected adjusting these parameters, especially tube diameter which is the most dominant source.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.48-52
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• 2007

A lot of researches have been done in order to investigate the dynamic characteristics of the aerostatic porous bearing, most of them used analytical approaches and only a few used experimental approaches. However the experimental condition used in the previous experimental approaches was not realistic, where the porous bearing has been fixed and only the mass supported by the bearing was allowed to move vertically. The dynamic stiffness obtained by those experimental setups may be different with the real case where the mass and the bearing move together in horizontal direction. In this paper, the dynamic characteristics of the horizontally moving aerostatic circular porous air bearings are investigated by the experimental approach. The experimental apparatus was designed to realize its real operating condition used in most industrial applications. The experimental results were compared with the previous experimental ones.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2006.05a
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• pp.1170-1176
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• 2006

This study aims to investigate numerically the static and dynamic stiffness characteristics of porous air bearing and to estimate appropriate permeability values of porous medium. In particular, a new roughness model is proposed and implemented into the commercial CFD code (FLUENT Ver.6.2). The predicted results are extensively compared with experimental data for static cases. The roughness model is also validated through comparison with the results from open literature. For the dynamic cases, the deforming and re-meshing technique is used for describing fluid-solid interactions. It is found that the predictions for static stiffness are in good agreement with experimental data and the dynamic stiffness appears to be relatively smaller than the static stiffness. In addition, moving and dynamic analysis of air bearing seems to be possible to provide qualitative predictions even if there are somewhat discrepancies quantitatively, compared to experimental data.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.134-142
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• 2008

In this paper, we propose a precise linear motion stage supported by magnetically preloaded air bearings. The eight aerostatic bearings with rectangular carbon porous pads were located only one side of vertical direction under the platen where four bearings are in both sides of horizontal direction as wrap-around-design, and this gives simpler configuration than which constrained by air bearings for all direction. Each of the magnetic actuators has a permanent magnet generating static magnetic flux far required preload and a coil to perturb the magnetic farce resulting adjustment of air- bearing clearance. The characteristics of porous aerostatic bearing are analyzed by numerical analysis, and analytic magnetic circuit model is driven for magnetic actuator to calculate preload and variation of force due to current. A 1-axis linear stage motorized with a coreless linear motor and a linear encoder was designed and built to verify this design concept. The load capacity, stiffness and preload force were examined and compared with analysis. With the active magnetic preloading actuators controlled with DSP board and PWM power amplifiers, the active on-line adjusting tests about the vertical, pitching and rolling motion were performed. It was shown that motion control far three DOF motions were linear and independent after calibration of the control gains.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2008.11a
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• pp.467-468
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• 2008

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.23 no.10
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• pp.103-112
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• 2006

This paper describes a theoretical analysis and experimental verification on the performances of a vacuum-compatible air bearing, which is designed with a cascaded exhaust scheme to minimize the air leakage in a vacuum environment. The design of the vacuum-compatible air bearing equipped with the differential exhaust system requires great care because several design parameters, such as the number of exhaust stages, diameter of exhaust tube, pumping speed of a vacuum pump, and bearing clearance greatly influence the air leakage and thus degree of vacuum. In this study, a performance analysis method was proposed to estimate the performances of the air bearing, such as load capacity, stiffness, and air leakage. Results indicate that the load capacity and stiffness of the air bearing was improved as its boundary pressure, which was determined by the $1^{st}$ exhaust method, was lowered, and the dominant factors on the chamber's degree of vacuum were the number of exhaust stages, exhaust tube diameter and bearing clearance. A vacuum chamber and air bearing stage using porous pad were fabricated to verify the theoretical analysis. The results demonstrate that chamber pressure up to an order of $10^{-3}$ Pa was achieved with the air bearing stage operating inside the chamber, and this analysis method was valid by comparing predicted values with experimental data, for the mass flow rates from the porous pad, and pressures at each exhaust port and chamber, respectively.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2006.05a
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• pp.135-136
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• 2006

A precise linear motion stage supported by magnetically preloaded air bearings is introduced where preloading magnetic actuators are combined with permanent magnets and coils to adjust air bearing clearance by controlling magnetic force actively. Each of the magnetic actuators has a permanent magnet generating nominal magnetic flux for required preload and a coil to perturb the magnetic force resulting adjustment of air-bearing clearance. The characteristics of porous aerostatic bearing are analyzed by numerical analysis, and analytic magnetic circuit model is driven for magnetic actuator to calculate nominal preload and variation of force due to current. A 1-axis linear stage motorized with a coreless linear motor and a linear encoder is built for verifying this design concept. With the active magnetic preloading actuators controlled with DSP board and PWM power amplifiers, the active on-line adjusting tests about the vertical, pitching and rolling motion were performed, and the result shows very good linearity.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.30 no.12
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• pp.1327-1333
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• 2013

Air bearings are widely used in precision stages because of low friction and high motion accuracy, however, they suffer from low stiffness in comparison with rolling bearings or hydrostatic bearings. So, several preloading methods using weight, magnet and vacuum force, and opposing pads have been used to increase the stiffness of the air bearings. In this paper, pressure distributions of the vacuum preloaded porous air bearings are calculated using the proposed method. And then, the load capacity and stiffness are analyzed. For the vacuum preloaded air bearings, the stiffness is increased owing to reduced bearing clearance by vacuum force. The simulation results indicate that variation of vacuum pressure with clearance in the vacuum pocket gives rise to low stiffness, so the vacuum pocket should be designed for pressure to be constantly maintained regardless of the bearing clearance by means of large effective pumping speed.