LAUSR

Abstract This paper presents a state-of-the-art survey on the development of the foil bearing technology. Foil bearings represent a proven technology with many promising features. Nevertheless, there are a number of inherent challenges in their designs, analyses, and performance characteristics that must be taken into consideration for proper functionality and safe operation. To this end, complexities associated with geometrical configurations with the compressible flow, dynamic performance and stability associated with stiffness and damping, frictional characteristics associated with low- and high-speed operations, and thermoelastic instability leading to thermally-induced runaway are discussed in depth with particular attention to their progressive evolutions.