Air bearings benefits include high precision, high integrity design solutions, high rotational speed, consistent performance & long life.Here you’ll find information on Westwind’s products and services, a library of [air bearings] technical documents and maintenance instructions, plus information on our worldwide sales, repair and support network.

Our typical air bearings are hydrostatic (or in our case aerostatic) and use a compressed air supply to create the fluid film. This supply should be clean and regulated to a constant pressure - simple off the shelf air handling components are more than adequate for most applications to clean, dehumidify, and regulate the supply. Typical operating pressures run as low as 20 psi up to 120 psi depending on the stiffness bearings , load capacity, and air consumption requirements.

air bearings offer the best of all worlds because they have excellent accuracy, precision and repeatability. They offer high accuracy because the components are manufactured with extremely tight tolerances and because of the air film's averaging effects. Typical linear accuracies are 10 μin/in with maximum deviation of 100 μin/36 in. Rotary runout can be as low ±1 μin. Air skf bearings also offer extremely good tilt characteristics - 0.25 arcsec/in.

Because air bearings exhibit no stiction or running friction, the precision achievable is only limited by the abilities of the motor/controller/encoder. Positioning precision of ±1 encoder count can easily be achieved using linear motors.

This configuration works well for linear bearings and can be very cost effective because it reduces the tolerances required for the air bearing components (as compared to ntn bearing preloaded systems). However, because many air bearings are made from nonmagnetic materials, it requires adding other materials to the bearing (such as iron). Another drawback is that at high speeds, the magnet generates eddy currents in the iron which oppose the motion and add a drag force

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