Importance

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Abstract

A modular hydrostatic bearing for use in precision machine tools and the like, where a load is supported by bolting it to modular bearing carriages or trucks which ride on parallel bearing rails, where the carriages or trucks are kept from making physical contact with the bearing rails by hydrostatic bearing pockets formed in the carriages, and where the bearing rail has two sides and two or more surfaces per side that form load carrying surfaces that the hydrostatic bearing pockets run against, and where the bearing rail load carrying surfaces have precision smooth continuous curves between them, such that the carriage can be formed with a mating surface containing the hydrostatic bearing pockets and also have smooth continuous surfaces between the hydrostatic bearing pockets, such that the carriage can be fitted over the rail with clearance suitable for hydrostatic bearing operation, but greatly reduced leakage flow because there is no direct leakage flow to the atmosphere from between sets of adjacent load carrying hydrostatic bearing pockets; and wherein the special curved profiles of the rails create surfaces with which carriages' hydrostatic bearing pockets react to support a load, and in which the rails also have special contours that create surface self compensating resistance paths directly between the pressure supply grooves and the load-bearing hydrostatic pockets, and in which the special compensation contours are oriented at an angle to the leakage paths from the hydrostatic pockets to the drains, thereby causing flow to the hydrostatic pockets inversely proportional in relation to the amount of bearing gap closure between the pockets and the rail.

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First Claim