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In order to increase the load capacity of aerostatic bearings, a kind of continuous slot-restriction aerostatic thrust bearing was designed and manufactured. The CFD simulation and experiment methods were both used for studying it; the data about the load capacity was derived from the two methods. The calculation results of the CFD simulation method were compared with the experiment ones. The following conclusions were drawn. (1) The design and manufacture of continuous slot-restriction aerostatic thrust bearing has reached the expected goals, which verifies the feasibility of the design and manufacture method. (2) Two kinds of data from the two methods fit well, which verifies the accuracy and the adaptability of the CFD simulation method.

The three-dimensional models of circular thrust porous aerostatic bearings were built and the simulations were carried out with the Fluent software. The effect of the porous material thickness, the working surface error and the rotating speed on the static characteristics of circular thrust bearings were studied. The following conclusions were obtained. (1) With the decrease of the gas film clearance, the static performance of bearing improves. (2) The static performance is optimum when the porous material thickness is from 6 to 8mm. (3) The dynamic pressure effect will become more obvious with higher rotating speed. (4) The static characteristics of bearings with convex working surface error are better than those with concave working surface error.