Recently, ultra micro gas turbines have required bearings to achieve low power consumption, excellent stability at high-speeds and durability in high temperature environment. Air foil bearings with thin lamina plates are one of the most suitable candidates for ultra micro gas turbines because air foil bearings can easily achieve very low power consumption, excellent stability at high-speeds and follow the deformation of a shaft and bearings by high temperature. However, the structure of conventional foil bearings with bump foils was very complicated and it was difficult to accurately predict the static and dynamic characteristics of foil bearings. In this paper, a small sized air foil thrust bearing with relatively a simple structure is proposed for an ultra micro gas turbine and the static characteristics of the proposed bearing are investigated experimentally and theoretically.
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