Desenvolvimento de um material compósito cerâmico para aplicação em mancais porosos

Abstract

Unlike contact roller bearings, air bearings utilize a thin film of pressurized air to provide a zero friction load bearing interface between surfaces that would otherwise be in contact with each other. Being non-contact, air bearings avoid the traditional bearing-related problems of friction, wear, and lubricant handling, and offer several advantages in precision positioning and high speed applications. Unlike traditional orifice air bearings, porous media air bearings deliver the air through a porous medium to ensure uniform pressure across the entire bearing area. The present work aims to develop a cementitious ceramic material and micro particles of silica to be applied as a restrictor in aerostatic bearings in order to lower production costs. The experimental methodology will be based on Full Design of Experiment in order to identify the main factors and the interactions factors effects on the investigated properties. The factors used for this investigation were the physical characteristics of the silica particles, such as particle size and geometry and compaction pressure of the composites. Despite the composites with silica particles sizes of 44ìm (C13, C14, C15 and C16) have achieved the requirements to be applied as a porous air bearing, the composite (C16) manufactured with non-spherical particles and10MPa of pressure has shown to be a good potential material for the future of porous thrust bearings, exhibiting superior properties for permeability and density.