Design of a Novel Air Bearing Workbench for Rotary Ultrasonic Drilling of Advanced Ceramics

Abstract

A novel air bearing workbench used in rotary ultrasonic drilling of advanced ceramics was designed to constantly and sensitively control the cutting force. Compared with traditional feed systems, the novel air bearing workbench features an aerostatic guide and a pneumatic actuator, so that it only overcomes the air damping when the cutting force is balanced. Thus, it can sensitively and constantly control the cutting force for rotary ultrasonic drilling of advanced ceramics. The aerostatic guide, which determines the eccentric bearing capacity and stiffness of the workbench, is the most important part. The forces applied on the aerostatic guide faces were analyzed to calculate the bearing capacity and stiffness of the workbench using varying gas film thicknesses with finite element method (FEM). Based on the result of the analysis, the best gas film thickness of the aerostatic guide was designed to be 30 μm. The real eccentric bearing capacity and stiffness of the workbench were measured. The error between experimental results and the FEM results was within 12%.