Numerical simulations on the stiffness of aerostatic air bearings.

This report outlines the research conducted during my internship at Schut Geometrical Metrology. We investigate the airflow through an aerostatic air bearing produced by maintaining a high pressure at the inlet of the air bearing. To this end, we created a meshing software that is specialized in meshing the exact geometry of the air bearing. We then used OpenFOAM to run a number of simulations, both on flat air bearing and indented air bearings. The stiffness and load carrying capacity of the bearings at different separation distances was approximated and compared. The indented air bearings provide a clear advantage when it comes to both stiffness and load bearing capacity.