Development of Deformable Hydrostatic Bearings with Topology Optimization

Conventional hydrostatic bearings are not suited to use on surfaces with changing curvature which limits their applicability. To improve on this, deformable hydrostatic bearings are currently being researched. The goal of this work is to develop hydrostatic bearings with a single fluid supply that work for sinusoidal counter surfaces. <br/><br/...

Development of a suspension system for a hydrostatic bearing operating on an undulating surface

Hydrostatic bearings are typically designed to operate on flat, parallel surfaces, but a flexible hydrostatic bearing that can adapt to uneven smooth surfaces would have broader applications. This thesis focuses on the challenges of implementing the whiffletree concept to support a large, deformable hydrostatic bearing on wavy surfaces, which...

Lubrication-film height imaging for hydrostatic bearings with fluorescence: With an analytic solution to the plane-parallel, fluorescent radiative transfer equation

The performance of hydrostatic bearings is in part decided by their lubrication-film height shape. Imaging the shape can be done by dissolving fluorescent dyes in the layer. However, current imaging techniques are rooted in heuristics, and as such, their physics, design parameters, and error sources are not quantitively understood. To fully...

Modelling and Design of a 2D Whiffletree Based Large Deforming Hydrostatic Bearing

Hydrostatic bearings are superior in terms of performance to contact based bearings, but non-usable in applications with non-constant curvature counter surfaces. A solution to this would be the introduction of deformable hydrostatic bearings components to cope with these required deformations. To reduce the required deformation of a bearing pad,...

Design of a fluorescent measurementsystem for compliant hydrostaticbearings

A LED induced fluorescent technique based test setup is introduced , which is used to measure the water film thickness of compliant hydrostatic bearings. Fluorescent particles have the characteristic of absorbing light of a certain wavelength and emitting light of a higher wavelength. A LED with a wavelength of 540 nm (green light) is used to...

Gate Design For Large, High Head Locks: "The development of an innovative lock gate"

This master thesis researches the necessity and possibilities of new/innovative lock gate technologies for future large & high head locks, like the Panama Canal Expansion Project. A historical data analysis has been performed, contemplates over 220 of the worlds largest locks throughout time, analyzing the development and application of...