High Load Rubber Laminate Bearings And Pressure Seals
These bearings comprise stacked and bonded-together multiple thin washer-like layers of rubber and metal that can support very heavy loads while permitting limited angular movement through the combined resilience of the rubber layers. They are used on many helicopters to support tons of centrifugal force on their rotor blades while permitting oscillating pitch variation of the blades as they rotate.
Similarly, these elastomeric bearings may support the blades of small wind turbines while allowing their pitch to be changed in response to varying wind speed.
They are also useful as hermetic seals against a high-pressure fluid while allowing oscillatory motion of a shaft that penetrates a pressure vessel such as a submarine that has shaft-supported diving planes.
Keywords: elastomeric, rubber, laminate, helicopter, helicopter blade, retention, centrifugal, force, wind turbine, thrust, oscillate, submersible, submarine, depth, ocean, undersea, RSV, AUV, UUV, pressure, seal