What Are Fluid Film Bearings?
A fluid bearing is a bearing type that creates a thin liquid or gas layer to form a low friction load-bearing interface between the moving components. Also known as fluid film bearings, they split the component surfaces with a thin layer of oil more often than not. It is like a bed of fluid between two metal components, making pieces slide rather than grind or scrape. While this fluid layer offers high load enduring capacity and good resistance to any surface movement, the sliding feature contributes to smoother operations and longer machine life. Thanks to their qualities such as bearing massive loads, operating at high speeds and enduring high temperatures, they are commonly used in applications such as turbines and hard disk drives. How Fluid Bearings Work As we learnt in the above section, fluid bearings work by creating a separating layer of pressurized fluid between two or more moving parts. This fluid layer does not let the mechanical parts directly touch each other, helpi...