Fluid Bearing
Fluid bearings are bearings which support the bearing's loads solely on a thin layer of liquid or gas.
They can be broadly classified into two types: fluid dynamic bearings and hydrostatic bearings. Hydrostatic bearings are externally pressurized fluid bearings, where the fluid is usually oil, water or air, and the pressurization is done by a pump. Hydrodynamic bearings rely on the high speed of the journal (the part of the shaft resting on the fluid) to pressurize the fluid in a wedge between the faces.
Fluid bearings are frequently used in high load, high speed or high precision applications where ordinary ball bearings would have short life or cause high noise and vibration. They are also used increasingly to reduce cost. For example, hard disk drive motor fluid bearings are both quieter and cheaper than the ball bearings they replace.
Read more about Fluid Bearing: Operation, Characteristics and Principles of Operation
Famous quotes containing the words fluid and/or bearing:
“There are no fixtures in nature. The universe is fluid and volatile. Permanence is but a word of degrees. Our globe seen by God is a transparent law, not a mass of facts. The law dissolves the fact and holds it fluid.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“What a dissimilarity we see in walking, swimming, and flying. And yet it is one and the same motion: it is just that the load- bearing capacity of the earth differs from that of the water, and that that of the water differs from that of the air! Thus we should also learn to fly as thinkers—and not imagine that we are thereby becoming idle dreamers!”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)