New Way Air Bearings of Aston has announced it has acquired the assets of the Bently Pressurized Bearing Company of Minden, Nevada.

New Way Air Bearings has 25 years of experience manufacturing air bearings, which are used by the machine tool, semiconductor, and medical industries.

New Way hopes to expand upon the work of Don Bently, former owner of Bently Nevada and Bently Pressurized Bearing Company. Don, who passed away four years ago, is best known for developing eddy current probes and rotor dynamic theory.

After spending a lifetime of studying rotor instabilities, he was keen to develop techniques to actively control instabilities. Bently demonstrated that by changing input pressure, and hence the stiffness of his bearings, the natural frequency of the rotor system could be tuned away from instabilities, from outside the machine.

“With New Way’s gas-bearing technology, we have overcome the limitations of the orifice technology he was using and believe that we make his dream a reality,” said Drew Devitt, founder and chairman of New Way Air Bearings.

New Way will soon be exhibiting externally pressurized gas bearing and seal technology at the Turbo Symposium from Sept. 13-15 in Houston Tex.