Compliant Air Foil Bearings are used in a wide variety of applications. The versatility, ease of manufacture, and low cost of foil bearings are a few of the reasons foil bearing have been so thoroughly researched. Miniaturization of gas foil bearings has been explored using silicon parts with marginal success. An approach utilizing a well known micro-fabrication technique called LIGA (German acronym meaning Lithography, Electroplating, and Molding) is suggested as an alternative method. X-ray LIGA and UV-LIGA were explored and elastic foundations 200?m and 1mm in depth were made for an impulse turbine test setup. The main difference in between the two methods is resolution and depth that each is capable of producing. In addition, precision machine forming was used to create a top foil for the foil bearing. The predicted performance of the bearing was investigated through the orbit simulation method. A parametric study based on preload, as well as loss factor, was conducted in which the rotor speed was varied and the responses were used to create cascade plots. Both the response and cascade plots are useful to determine the onset of instability and the maximum operating speed of the foil bearing manufactured through LIGA. The unique features of the gas foil bearing introduced provide great promise in terms of its application considering the high stable operating speed is just above 1000 krpm.

Des études internes à Liebherr-Aerospace France, concernant la conception de nouveaux compresseurs lubrifiés par gaz réfrigérant, ont montré que dans des conditions de fonctionnement spécifiques, un mélange de vapeur et de liquide apparaît au sein du compresseur, au lieu d'une phase vapeur seule. De ce fait, le comportement des paliers à feuilles lubrifiés au gaz réfrigérant est étudié, y compris la possibilité d'un écoulement diphasique du lubrifiant. L'étude porte sur le comportement du lubrifiant uniquement, dans des conditions de fonctionnement qui sont celles des paliers à feuilles. L'approche Thermo-Hydrodynamique décrit les caractéristiques du lubrifiant telles que la pression, la densité, la viscosité et la température. Dans ce modèle, une équation de Reynolds généralisée pour écoulement turbulent, une équation d'état non-linéaire pour écoulement diphasique et une équation de l'énergie tridimensionnelle pour film-mince et écoulement turbulent sont utilisées. Les paramètres globaux du palier sont calculés en régime permanent. / Internal experiments at Liebherr-Aerospace FRANCE on new refrigerant-lubricated compressor designs have shown that under specific operating conditions, a mixture of vapor and liquid appears in the compressor, instead of a single-phase vapor flow. Therefore, refrigerant-lubricated foil bearings behavior is studied, including the likelihood of two-phase flow in the lubricant. We focus on the lubricant behavior only, in the operating conditions of foil bearings. The Thermo-Hydrodynamic approach describes lubricant characteristics such as pressure, density, viscosity, and temperature. It involves the use of a generalized Reynolds equation for turbulent flow, a nonlinear cubic equation of state for two-phase flow and a 3D turbulent thin-film energy equation. Journal bearing global parameters are calculated for steady-state conditions.