Experimental study of a new compliant foil air bearing with elastic support

A new air-lubricated compliant foil journal bearing with elastic support, which has uniform surface stiffness and is much simpler in structure than previous compliant foil bearings (CFBs), is introduced in this article. Experiments have been conducted on the application of this type of CFB to a high-speed test rig, and this CFB can operate stably at 151,000 rpm. From the tests it is clear that the radial clearance C has a direct impact on the performance of this CFB, so the numerical relationship of structural parameters is listed in this article. Experimental results indicate that the CFB presented here offers preferable system dynamic and stability performance and has adequate damping to effectively reduce the possibility of self-excited and fractional frequency whirl.