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Difficulty in attaining and controlling a desirable level of damping in foil bearings, and in designing them for large shaft diameters, led to the concept of the Hydroflex™ bearing. In this concept, each of a number of rigid shoes is supported on a compound post and beam flexure, and the radial motion of the pad is damped by a Coulomb friction damper. In this fashion, the tolerance of the foil to shaft growth (centrifugal and thermal) and to misalignment is retained with the added advantages of a larger and controlled level of damping plus the ready availability of conventional gas bearing theory for design. The feasibility of the Hydroflex™ design approach was demonstrated on a simple test rotor with a 3.5-in. (89-mm) Hydroflex™ bearing at speeds up to 30,000 r/min.

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