Atomically precise bearings

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Types of atomically precise bearings:

Which type to pick

Which type to pick depends on:

  • the requirements on friction
  • the amount of available space
  • the needed load bearing capability

Bearing interface volume

By far the least volume is taken up by atomically precise slide bearings.
Thus they seem to be a natural choice for in Molecular mills in assembly level 1 of
gem-gum factories and preceding systems like sorting rotors.
Smallest machinery is proposed to be run slow speeds like e.g. 1mm/s to ~5mm/s.
Thus (and because of the scaling law of higher throughput of smaller machinery) friction levels stay low.

Bearing friction

See main pages: Friction in gem-gum technology, Friction

Dynamic friction

Slide bearings experience dynamic friction which

  • grows and shrinks quadratically with rising and shrinking speed respectively
  • 1/10th the speed means 100th the friction => friction can be very low for low speeds
  • 10x the speed means 100xthe friction => friction can also can get quite significant for moderate to higher speeds

Especially for higher speeds Atomically precise roller gearbearings might have quite a bit lower friction. For those having

  • much slower relative motion (goes in quadratically)
  • quite a bit less contact area (goes in linearly) - reduces load bearing capacity though

Static friction

Atomically precise can effectively reduce static friction to zero by having the thermal equipartitioning energy kT much above the remnant wavyness of the potential energy across turning angles .

For details see main page about: Superlubricity

Increased friction from high loads

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Related

Sub-types: