VISVESVARAYA TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY

“JNANA SANGAMA” BELAGAVI – 590 018.

K.L.E. Society’s
K.L.E. COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY
CHIKODI – 591201, KARNATAKA

DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

A Seminar Report on
Subject Code: 17MES86
“ACTIVE MAGNETIC BEARING”

Submitted in partial fulfillment for the award of the degree of

BACHELOR OF ENGINEERING
IN
MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

Submitted by,

Mr. Akshay Terani

USN: 2KD18ME402

Under the Guidance of

Prof. R. V. Kerumali
Department of Mechanical Engineering
K.L.E. College of Engineering & Technology, Chikodi – 591 201.

2020-21
 K.L.E. Society’s
K.L.E. COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY
CHIKODI – 591 201, KARNATAKA

2020-21

DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

Certificate of Approval of Seminar

This is to certify that Mr. Akshay Terani bearing USN: 2KD18ME402 have
satisfactorily completed the Final Year Seminar entitled “Active Magnetic Bearing” for
the partial fulfillment of Bachelor of Engineering in Mechanical Engineering prescribed by
the Visvesvaraya Technological University, Belagavi for the academic year 2020-21.
The report has been approved as it satisfies the academic requirements in respect of
seminar prescribed for the Bachelor of Engineering Degree.

Guide H.O.D. Principal

Prof. R. V. Kerumali Prof. Kumar Chougala Dr. Prasad B. Rampure
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The success and final outcome of this seminar required a lot of guidance and assistance from
many people and I am extremely fortunate to have got this all along the completion of my seminar.
Whatever I have done is only due to such guidance and the assistance.

I owe my profound gratitude to my guide Prof. R. V. Kerumali, who took keen interest in
my seminar and guided me all along, till the completion of my seminar presentation.

I express my deep sense of gratitude to seminar coordinator Prof. A. S. Kabbur for his
fruitful cooperation.

With deep sense of gratitude I also acknowledge the encouragement of the Head of the
Department Prof. Kumar Chougala, for his continuous support and permitting to make use of the
facilities available in the department.

I express my sincere gratitude to Dr. Prasad B. Rampure, Principal, KLE College of

Engineering & Technology, Chikodi for his support and encouragement in this regard.

Last but not the least, we are thankful to our Parents, family members and all our friends for
their support and help, extended during this seminar.

Place: Chikodi Akshay Terani

ii
 ABSTRACT
Active magnetic bearings (AMBs) support a rotating shaft, inside a stator, contactless.
Their major benefit in respect to hydrodynamic journal bearings is the possibility of operating
in much higher rotational speeds (above 20.000 RPM). This is due to the fact that, their
angular velocity is only limited by the strength of the shaft material and always they have
stabilized operation without any mechanic contact. Also, AMBs are resulting in long life
time, without the use of any lubrication system, eliminating thus the complexity of the
lubricant network and promoting green operation of the rotating machines. Furthermore, the
electromagnetic bearings are active elements that allow the measurement and the control of
the position of the shaft, targeting in most accurate equilibrium positions, in terms of the shaft
operation. Therefore, a suitable control system is required for a magnetic bearing, to exploit
the above advantageous operational characteristics.

In this study, the model of the control system of a Magnetic Bearing in terms of
sensors and power amplifiers is presented and its design guidelines are explicitly described.
As a first step, the non linear equation of the movement of the shaft inside the magnetic
bearing, in one direction (y-axis), is introduced. Then, the linearization of this particular
equation in a specific equilibrium point is performed and presented. Consequentially, the
linear equation is transformed via Laplace method and the model of the Active Magnetic
Bearing is finally developed. In addition to these, the sensor and the power amplifiers are
modeled, to simulate the AMB system as a whole.

The Matlab software is used to simulate the components that the AMB is consisted of.
The P, I and D gains are the result of this simulations, which are produced via robust control
method, in SingleInput-Single-Output (SISO) tool module of Matlab.

At the end, the Simulink module of Matlab is energized to check the control
characteristics of the developed AMB system, taking into account the non-linear equations of
the electromagnetic forces and the saturation of the coils. The rotor response, the overshoot,
the rotor centre vibration are controlled using the above produced P, I and D gains. Several
plots are constructed and presented to show the AMB control possibility with the
aforementioned methodology.

iii
 CONTENTS
Certificate i
Acknowledgement ii
Abstract iii
Contents iv
List of Notations v

iv
 ACTIVE MAGNETIC BEARINGS

SL.NO CHAPTER NAME PAGE NO

1. Introduction 01

2. Active Magnetic Bearings 02-04

2.1 What are Active Magnetic Bearings? 02

2.2 Principle and Operation of AMB 02

2.3 Improved Machine Performance Using Active Control Technology 03

2.3.1 Identification and Control 04

3. System Components 05-07

3.1 Magnetic Bearing 05

3.2 Position Sensor 05

3.3 Controller 05

3.4 Host Computer 06

3.5 Power Amplifier 06

3.6 Others 07

4. AMBs For High-Temperature Applications 08-11

4.1 High Temperature Magnetic Bearings 08

4.1.1 Advanced Features of The High Temperaturemagnetic Bearings 08

4.2 Advantages of AMB 09

4.3 Disadvantages of AMB 10

4.4 Applications 11

4.5 Scope of active magnetic bearing 12

5. Conclusion 13

6. References 14

v
Active Magnetic Bearing 17MES86

1. INTRODUCTION

Active magnetic bearings are replacing oil-lubricated bearings in many applications.

The benefits of using magnetic bearings in rotating machinery include higher reliability with
little or no maintenance, reduced frictional losses, no contaminating or flammable lubricants,
reduced machine vibration, and improved health monitoring and diagnostics. However,
despite these advantages, the application of magnetic bearings has been limited in the past by
the large size of the magnetic bearings, the complexity of integrating the magnetic bearings
into the machine, the need for a large external control system, and the high cost. Recent
advances in magnetic bearing technology, including miniaturization, simplicity and
integration have overcome many of these limitations. As a result, magnetic bearings are
replacing oil-lubricated bearings for many new types of machines in a variety of industries.
Active magnetic bearing system levitates the rotating shaft and maintains it in position by
applying controlled electromagnetic forces on the rotor in radial and axial directions. The
active magnetic bearing is the principle which is actually used most often among the magnetic
suspensions.
A sensor measures the displacement of the rotor from its reference position, a
microcontroller as a controller derives a control signal from the measures and gives signal to a
power amplifier into a control current, and the control current generates the magnetic forces
within the actuating magnet in such a way that the rotor remains in its hovering position. This
enables very high rotational speed to be realized. A magnetic bearing is free of lubricant,
which avoids servicing and also enables use in clean room environment. Maintenance is also
decreased due to absence of surface wear, so that as long as the control system functions as
intended, there could be no maintenance. One major disadvantage to using magnetic bearings
is their complexity. A very knowledgeable person in the field is generally required to design
and implement a successful system. Because of the large amount of effort and time required
for development and the increase in the number of components, compared to a traditional
bearing, the initial costs are much higher. However, depending on the application, the return
on investment for these initial costs could be relatively short for a system, for example, that
runs with a much higher efficiency due to the lack of bearing friction resistance.

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2. ACTIVE MAGNETIC BEARINGS (AMB)

2.1 WHAT ARE ACTIVE MAGNETIC BEARINGS?

A magnetic bearing is a bearing which supports a load using magnetic levitation.

Magnetic bearings support moving machinery without physical contact, for example, they can
levitate a rotating shaft and permit relative motion without friction or wear. In active magnetic
bearings (AMB) a stable equilibrium is achieved by means of one or more control loops. The
use of control loop for maintaining the gap between the shaft and bearing differentiate
the active magnetic bearings (AMB) from passive ones. They are in service in such industrial
applications as electric power generation, petroleum refining, machine tool operation and
natural gas pipelines.

Fig. 2.1

2.2 PRINCIPLE AND OPERATION OF AMB

Active magnetic bearing (AMB) works on the electromagnetic suspension principles.

Electromagnetic suspension is the magnetic levitation of an object achieved by constantly
altering the strength of a magnetic field produced by electromagnets using a feedback loop. A
charged body cannot rest in stable equilibrium when placed in a pure electrostatic field or
magneto static field (Earnshaw’s theorem). In these kinds of fields an unstable equilibrium
condition may exists, also static fields may provide to fail the stability, electromagnet
suspension works by continually altering the current sent to electromagnets to change the
strength of the magnetic field and allows a suitable levitation to occur. In EMS a feedback
loop which continuously adjusts one or more electromagnets to correct the objects motion is

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used to cancel the instability. A set of power amplifiers which supply current to the
electromagnets, a controller and gap sensors with associated electronics to provide the
feedback required to control the position of the rotor within the gap.The power amplifier
supplies equal bias current to two pairs of electromagnets on opposite sides of the rotor. Then
constant tug-of-war is mediated by the controller which offsets the bias current by equal and
opposite perturbations of current as the rotor deviates from its center position. The gap is
monitored by a current sensors and sense in a differential mode. The power amplifiers
operation can be achieved by Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) technique. The controller is
usually a Proportional Integral Derivative (PID)
controller.

Fig. 2.2

2.3 IMPROVED MACHINE PERFORMANCE USING ACTIVE

CONTROL TECHNOLOGY

Active Magnetic Bearings (AMBs) with their control system inherently offer the
possibility of continuously recording bearing forces and rotor displacements. This allows on-
line monitoring of critical process parameters and early detection of incipient faults, such that
reliability is increased. Furthermore, AMBs can actively influence a machine's behavior.
Thereby, operation can be adjusted and optimized according to process changes.

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2.3.1 IDENTIFICATION AND CONTROL

AMB systems are often used to control structural resonance frequencies coming from the
rotor or from elastic supports. The resonance frequencies may vary significantly with the
rotational speed. Controller design for AMB systems is therefore important for the system
performance. Controller design requires a plant model. Identification, i.e. modeling based on
dynamic measurements, is a fast way for obtaining such a model. Both controller design and
identification are topics of current research.

Fig. 2.3.1

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3. SYSTEM COMPONENTS

3.1 MAGNETIC BEARING

The radial and axial magnetic bearings are located in the generator. In order to reduce the
range of products, magnetic bearings for generator rotor and turbocompressor rotor are
designed as the unified size according to the generator rotor load in operation condition. The
radial bearing radial gap is 0.15mm considering the gap of 0.4mm between the compressor
stator and blades in order to protect the compressor.

3.2 POSITION SENSOR

The rotor displacements in radial and axial are monitored by the position sensors, which
are of induction type. The sensor consists of sensitive elements located on the stator and an
acting element located on the rotor in front of the sensitive elements. The sensitive element is
an annular magnetic circuit with 24 poles, of which each 6 poles are grouped to detect the
radial displacements in X and Y directions. In such design, a kind of 2/3 redundancy working
mode for sensor signals can be easily realized. The acting element is an extension made of the
laminated ferromagnetic steel, which is fixed on turbomachine shaft. Windings around the
stator perimeter are distributed in order to average andsmooth the measure value. This kind of
sensor has good sensitivity of no less than 10mV/μm and resolution of at least 1μm. Its cut-
off frequency is enough so high (>5k Hz) that the phase lag at operation frequency can be
neglected. The voltage signal after the sensor modulator can be transferred more than 200m
without obvious attenuation.

3.3 CONTROLLER

The controllers, as well as all its peripheral equipment, including A/D, D/A, network
card, etc., is standard industry type, usually selected as high speed Digital Signal Processing
(DSP) computer, which has good stability and excellent hard real-time interrupt processing
capability. For example, the new DSP product of TI 6713 has powerful floating-point
operation of 1350 MFLOPS and can be adopted as the ideal micro processor of the controller.
The A/D converter has 10 channels with 500kS/s rate and 16bit precision, while the D/A
converter have 5 channels with 1MS/s rate and 14bit precision.

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The controller shall have the following functions:
1) Receive information about displacement, rotation speed and angular position of the
machine rotor from the sensor converters.
2) Receive the control commands from the operation computer to change some
parameters of the AMB control system.
3) Generate and release the current control signals in coil windings according to
thespecified algorithms and control commands.
4) Diagnose the states of the elements of the AMB system and transmit this
informationto the operator computer via networks.
5) Release signals about alarm and emergency protection.

3.4 HOST COMPUTER

The operating and monitoring computer (host) lies on the high level control channel,
whose type is standard PXI industry computer and its operation system is universal MS
Windows. The typical configuration of the host computer can select the NI with 2.3GHz
Pentium 4 CPU. The communication between controller and host computer is based on
industry network.
The main functions of the host computer are listed in the follows:

1) Establish and change the control algorithms or rules of the AMB;

2) Start up and stop the AMB control system;
3) Receive information about the states of AMB components and display this
information by different graphical means on the monitor;
4) Diagnose controller state and make decision;
5) Log and print information about the state of the AMB control system components;
6) Send process information to the Instrument and Control (I&C) system of reactor
plant.

3.5 POWER AMPLIFIER

The power amplifier receives the control signal in analog voltage from the controller and
keeps the current in the magnet winding according to this voltage signal. Generally speaking,
power amplifier is a kind of controlled constant-current source to the inductive reactance. As
the power of single amplifier unit is about 4.5kVA (300V, 15A), switch amplifier is the best

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type considering the losses and efficiency. In order to reduce the drawback of switch amplifier
of sharp oscillation impulsion at stable operation state, special method is selected to realize
a relative smoothly current, such as three-state voltage level, two H-bridge connecting in
series, high switch frequency of 60k Hz and so on. The phase lag is less than 3° at 200 Hz to
achieve good dynamic characteristics.

3.6 OTHERS
There are some other auxiliary components, such as main power supply, UPS for backup
power source, cables and penetrating connector.

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4. AMBS FOR HIGH-TEMPERATURE APPLICATIONS

AMBs could be attractive for gas turbines in airplanes and power production.
Problems to be investigated include design, materials, sensors, control, backup bearings, and
other topics relevant in the context of high-temperature operation. We participate in a research
project of the EU addressing these new applications.

4.1 HIGH TEMPERATURE MAGNETIC BEARINGS

Synchrony has developed a line of high temperature magnetic bearings for aerospace and
defense applications. The bearings are specifically designed for use in next generation gas
turbine engines, where high temperatures and high rotational speeds preclude the use of
industrial magnetic bearings.

Fig. 4.1

4.1.1 Advanced features of the high temperaturemagnetic bearings include:

 High temperature coils and magnets reducecooling requirements and improve

 efficiency and power density at temperatures to 1000°F

 Redundant magnets, signal processors, sensing, and amplification ensure continuous

operation

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 Integrated, high temperature sensors reduce the size and improve the performance

 Compact, light-weight magnetic structure increases power density

 Advanced, magnetic flux control algorithms improve the performance and dynamic
stability

 Inertial Balance System automatically and adaptively compensates for unbalance,

reducing vibration and power consumption

 These magnetic bearings are used with Synchrony's compact digital controllers to
provide a total solution for high power density, rotating machinery.

4.2 ADVANTAGES OF AMB

 Elimination of leaks, flash, contaminants

 Direct-drive, direct-coupled machines (no gearbox)

 Accurate, dynamic control of rotor position & stability

 Improved rotor dynamic performance through more compact designs, shorter

shafts and bearing spans and the possibility of multiple bearing systems.

 Absence of mechanical contact between shaft and bearing.

 Very low wear rate.

 Low power dissipation in the bearing.

 Absence of lubricants.

 High speeds of rotation.

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 Possibility to adjust position between the shaft and the bearing.

 Unbalance compensation.

 Ability to work in a broad spectrum of temperatures, in vacuum, in aggressive

surroundings, etc.

 Low vibration.

4.3 DISADVANTAGES

AMBs have also several significant disadvantages.

 One of the most crucial is very high complexity, which results in relatively high
probability of faults or failures.

 Properties of the AMBs are completely dependent on the quality of the control system.
Because AMBs are inherently unstable, they are not able to work correctly without
permanent feedback (e.g. information about displacements measured by sensors).

 A failure occurred in the loop can have fatal consequences for the process (e.g.
machined part) or for the equipment (e.g. spindle, tool, etc.).

System component faults can be classified (according to [3]) as external or internal to the
magnetic bearing control system. A fault is considered to be external when either it manifests
itself as or its effect can be replicated by external disturbance acting on the system.
External faults include

 Rotor impact,

 Rotor mass loss,

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 Base motion,

 Rotor deformations

 Sudden changes in loading

 Rotor rub

 Cracked rotor

External faults usually cause abnormal rotor vibrations, and can be treated by sufficient
control force and suitable controller design ([3]). Changes in control system can include
simple adjustment of controller parameters, adjustment or adaptation of the control algorithm.
Therefore the development of models of the hovering body (rotor, beam or lumped mass) is
necessary.

4.4 APPLICATIONS
Magnetic bearing advantages include very low and predictable friction, ability to run without
lubrication and in a vacuum. Magnetic bearings are commonly used in watt-hour meters by
electric utilities to measure home power consumption. Magnetic bearings are also used in
high-precision instruments and to support equipment in a vacuum, for example in flywheel
energy storage systems. A flywheel in a vacuum has very low windage losses, but
conventional bearings usually fail quickly in a vacuum due to poor lubrication. Magnetic
bearings are also used to support maglev trains in order to get low noise and smooth ride by
eliminating physical contact surfaces. Disadvantages include high cost, and relatively large
size.

Magnetic bearings allow contact-free levitation. This offers a number of interesting

advantages. Magnetic bearings do not require lubrication, they allow high circumferential
speeds at high loads, they do not suffer friction or wear, and therefore they offer a virtually
unlimited lifetime while no maintenance is needed.

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Furthermore, the bearing force can be modulated, either for compensating unbalance forces,
or for deliberately exciting vibrations. Because of these advantages, they are used in an
increasing number of commercial high-performance applications in the domain of rotating
machinery. These include ultra-high vacuum pumps, canned pipeline compressors and
expanders, high-speed milling and grinding spindles, flywheels for energy storage, gyroscopes
for space navigation, spinning spindles, and others.

4.5 Scope of active magnetic bearing

the purpose of my work is to take an initial look at my how the a AMB superior to other
conventional frictional bearing. I have collected the data and study about their construction
working and about their other parameters I had found that it a AMB have tremendous
advantage over the frictional bearing

the report is to explain the necessary step that were taken to achieve the task the theoretical
building a magnetic bearing actuator the bearing and to make optimise in the the accordance
to SCERT design (such as cool air air resistance force on the journal minimum for volume
except)

1 the bearing develops the required load capacity

2. the winding temperature was within the acceptable range of the required insulator class

To simplifying the analyses as much as possible testing and modeling has been performed on
a single radial a m b and a rigid non rotating shaft in order to gain an understanding of and
basic mechanism at work a linear model of the rotor bearing system under base extension has
been developed based on common assumption using AMB analysis

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5. CONCLUSION

The AMB technology has been briefly reviewed including its advantages, components,
working principles, cost and performance. Some design and implementation issues have been
also discussed. The authors believe that AMB systems are still relatively more expensive than
conventional mechanical bearings, some studies are needed to tackle the cost and complexity
issues; therefore the massive used of AMB in industries is still prohibitive despite of the many
benefits offered. The AMB will still not completely replace conventional bearings in rotating
machineries in the near future. However, AMB can find its place well in a limited volumes of
high performance rotating machines.

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6. REFERENCES
1. Shubham Naikwad ,“Study of Active Magnetic Bearing”, International Journal of
Engineering and Technical Research (IJETR) ISSN: 2321-0869 (O) 2454-4698 (P),
Volume-4, Issue-4, April 2016
2. Michael G. Farmakopoulos , Michalis D. Thanou, Pantelis G. Nikolakopoulos, Chris A.
Papadopoulos, Anthony P. Tzes,“A Control Model of Active Magnetic Bearings” , 3 rd
International Conference of Engineering Against Failure (ICEAF III) 26-28 June 2013,
Kos, Greece.
3. Alexei Filatov and Larry Hawkins, “GENERAL EXPLANATION OF HOW
MAGNETIC BEARINGS WORK”, Calnetix Technologies LLC Cerritos, CA, USA
4. Pranab Samanta and Harish Hirani, “Magnetic Bearing Configurations: Theoretical and
Experimental Studies”, IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MAGNETICS, VOL. 44, NO. 2,
FEBRUARY 2008
5. Schweitzer G, “Active Magnetic Bearings- Chances AND Limits”, Proceeding of the 6
th International IFTOMM Conference on Rotor Dynamics, Sydney, September 30-
October 3, (2002)
6. Wikipedia website: www.wiki.com/magneticbearing, Feb-2015 [March2, 2016]
7. Loesch F, ”Identification and automated controller design for active magnetic bearing
system”. Diss. ETH Zurich Nr.14474, (2001)

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