Axial Load Capacity of Water-Lubricated Hydrostatic Conical Bearings With Spiral Grooves (On the Case of Rigid Surface Bearings)

This paper describes the static characteristics of water-lubricated hydrostatic conical bearings with spiral grooves. Hydrostatic conical bearings treated here have been designed for high speed spindles and are intended to apply to spindles for drilling small holes of printed circuit-boards. Pressurized water is first fed to the inside of the rotating shaft and supplied to spiral grooves on the shaft surface through feeding holes. Therefore, water pressure is greatly increased at outlets of feeding holes due to the centrifugal force by shaft rotation. Furthermore, water pressure is also increased by the viscous pump effect of spiral grooves. Water pressures in the bearings under concentric condition are numerically obtained by using the finite element method and calculated results are compared with experimental ones. It is consequently found that this water-lubricated hydrostatic conical bearings with spiral grooves are very suitable for precision high speed spindles.