Hydrostatic bearing design and test for centerless grinding machines

The following thesis is based on the design and development of a hydrostatic journal bearing, commonly used for high precision machinery. The company “Bocca&Malandrone S.r.l.” works with machines with an accurate precision that allow to realize grinding operations. A very good solution for this application is represented by hydrostatic journal bearings. This thesis presents step by step how the realization of a hydrostatic journal bearing was made. It includes the design of the geometry, the fluid and pressure supply choice, the calculation of flow and forces. Moreover, an analysis of the bearing pads deflection was made. The design of the bearing was influenced by the presence of external loads and this involved the choice of the right stiffness the bearing must have. The hydrostatic bearing designed in the first part of the work, has not to be intended as the final bearing used in our application but it is just a generic example used for the design process. By the way, our project is characterized by two different size hydrostatic bearing, according with the existing machine elements. After showing the design process and the relative calculation examples, the parameters related to the two real hydrostatic bearings will be shared. It is possible to see them in the Appendix A. The design, the test and the realization of the system are the main section of the following work. To test how the system works under different conditions, a measuring test was created. Through it, it is possible to calculate the dynamic of the journal bearing, including stiffness and damping.