Purpose

Owing to the development of the smaller-sized rotational machinery, the demand for the high-speed and low-resistance gas bearing increases rapidly. The research of micro gas bearing in the condition of rarefied gas state is still not satisfied. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to present a numerical investigation of the effect of misalignment and rarefaction effect on the comprehensive performance of micro-electrical-mechanical system (MEMS) gas bearing.

Design/methodology/approach

The Fukui and Kaneko model is expanded to 2D solution domain to describe the flow field parameters. The finite element method is used to discretize the equation. Newton–Raphson method is used to solve the nonlinear equations for the static performance of gas bearing, and partial deviation method is adopted for the solution of dynamic equations.

Findings

The static and dynamic characteristics of MEMS gas bearing are calculated, and the comparison is made to study the influence of rarefaction effect and misalignment. The results show that the rarefaction effect will decrease bearing load capacity compared with traditional solution of Reynolds equation, and the misalignment will reduce the stability of bearing. The influence of misalignment on gas film thickness is also analyzed in this paper.

Originality/value

The investigation of this paper emerges the change regularity of comprehensive performance of MEMS gas bearing considering rarefaction effect and misalignment, which provides a reference for the actual manufacturing of MEMS gas bearing and for the safety operation of micro dynamic machinery.

Peer review

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/ILT-01-2020-0023/

中文翻译：

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偏移和稀疏效应对MEMS气浮轴承综合性能的影响

目的

由于小型旋转机械的发展，对高速和低电阻气体轴承的需求迅速增加。稀有气体状态下微气体轴承的研究仍不完善。因此，本文的目的是对未对准和稀疏效应对微机电系统（MEMS）气体轴承综合性能的影响进行数值研究。

设计/方法/方法

将Fukui和Kaneko模型扩展到2D解域，以描述流场参数。有限元法用于离散方程。牛顿-拉夫森法用于求解气体轴承静态性能的非线性方程，而偏偏差法用于求解动态方程。

发现

计算了MEMS气轴承的静态和动态特性，并进行了比较，以研究稀疏效应和未对准的影响。结果表明，与传统的雷诺方程解相比，稀疏效应会降低轴承的承载能力，而偏心会降低轴承的稳定性。本文还分析了未对准对气膜厚度的影响。

创意/价值

本文的研究得出了考虑稀疏效应和偏心的MEMS气体轴承综合性能的变化规律，为MEMS气体轴承的实际生产和微动机械的安全运行提供了参考。

同行评审

本文的同行评审历史记录可在以下网址获得：https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/ILT-01-2020-0023/