Magnetic bearing

GAP SENSOR
ELECTRONICS

GAP
SENSORS

ROTOR

CONTROLLER

POWER
AMPLIFIERS

A magnetic bearing
Basic operation for a single axis

1 Design
An active magnetic bearing works on the principle of electromagnetic suspension and consists of an
electromagnet assembly, a set of power ampliers 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 amplier supplies equal bias current to two pairs of electromagnets on opposite sides of
a rotor. This constant tug-of-war is mediated by the controller, which osets the bias current by equal and opposite perturbations of current as the rotor deviates from its
center position.

A magnetic bearing is a bearing that supports a load using magnetic levitation. Magnetic bearings support moving parts without physical contact. For instance, they are
able to levitate a rotating shaft and permit relative motion
with very low friction and no mechanical wear. Magnetic
bearings support the highest speeds of all kinds of bearing
and have no maximum relative speed.
Passive magnetic bearings use permanent magnets and,
therefore, do not require any input power but are dicult
to design due to the limitations described by Earnshaws
theorem. Techniques using diamagnetic materials are
relatively undeveloped and strongly depend on material
characteristics. As a result, most magnetic bearings are
active magnetic bearings, using electromagnets which require continuous power input and an active control system
to keep the load stable. In a combined design, permanent
magnets are often used to carry the static load and the
active magnetic bearing is used when the levitated object
deviates from its optimum position. Magnetic bearings
typically require a back-up bearing in the case of power
or control system failure.

The gap sensors are usually inductive in nature and sense

in a dierential mode. The power ampliers in a modern commercial application are solid state devices which
operate in a pulse width modulation conguration. The
controller is usually a microprocessor or digital signal processor.

Active bearings have several advantages: they do not suffer from wear, have low friction, and can often accommodate irregularities in the mass distribution automatically,
allowing rotors to spin around their center of mass with
Magnetic bearings are used in several industrial applica- very low vibration.
tions such as electrical power generation, petroleum re- Two types of instabilities are typically present in magnement, machine tool operation and natural gas han- netic bearings. Attractive magnets produce an unstable
dling. They are also used in the Zippe-type centrifuge,[1] static force that decreases with increasing distance and infor uranium enrichment and in turbomolecular pumps, creases at decreasing distances. This can cause the bearwhere oil-lubricated bearings would be a source of con- ing to become unbalanced. Secondly, because magnetism
tamination.
is a conservative force, it provides little damping; oscilla1

3 APPLICATIONS

tions may cause loss of successful suspension if any driv- eld capacity. The motor-compressor design was done by
ing forces are present.
Siemens and the active magnetic bearings were delivered
by Waukesha Bearings (owned by Dover Corporation).
(Originally these bearings were designed by Glacier, this
company was later taken over by Federal Mogul and is
2 History
now part of Waukesha Bearings.) By using active magnetic bearings and a direct drive between motor and comThe table below lists several early patents for active mag- pressor (without the gearbox in between) and applying
netic bearings. Earlier patents for magnetic suspensions dry gas seals, a full dry-dry (oil free) system has been incan be found but are excluded here because they consist stalled. Applying active magnetic bearings in the driver
of assemblies of permanent magnets of problematic sta- and in the compressor (compared to the traditional conguration with a gearbox, plain bearings and a gasturbinebility per Earnshaws Theorem.
driver) results in a relatively simple system with a very
Jesse Beams from the University of Virginia led some of wide operating range and high eciencies (particularly
the earliest active magnetic bearing patents [2][3] during at partial load). As done in the Groningen eld, the full
World War II. The patents dealt with ultracentrifuges in- installation can additionally be placed outdoors without
tended for the enrichment of isotopes of elements needed the need for a large compressor building.
for the Manhattan Project. However, magnetic bear[8]
ings did not mature until advances in solid-state electron- Meeks pioneered hybrid magnetic bearing designs (US
ics and modern computer-based control technology with patent 5,111,102) in which permanent magnets provide
the work of Habermann[4] and Schweitzer.[5] In 1987, the bias eld and active control coils are used for stabilEstelle Croot further improved active magnetic bearing ity and dynamic control. These designs using permanent
technology,[6] but these designs were not manufactured magnets for bias elds are smaller and of lighter weight
due to expensive costs of production, which used a laser than purely electromagnetic bearings. The electronic
guidance system. Estelle Croots research was the sub- control system is also smaller and requires less electrical
ject of 3 Australian patents and was funded by Nachi power because the bias eld is provided by the permaFujikoshi, Nippon Seiko KK and Hitachi, and her cal- nent magnets. One of the most successful applications of
culations were used in other technologies that used rare this technology was by Danfoss, a manufacturer of refrigearth magnets but the active magnetic bearings were only erator turbopumps. Using permanent magnet bias magnetic bearings allows the compressors to operate at over
developed to the prototype stage.
40,000 rpm instead of the traditional 3,600 rpm. The
Kasarda[7] reviews the history of active magnetic bear- Danfoss compressors are an order of magnitude smaller
ings in depth. She notes that the rst commercial applica- and lighter in weight than the lower speed compressors
tion of active magnetic bearings was in turbomachinery. that they replace. Thousands of compressors using this
The active magnetic bearing allowed the elimination of advanced magnetic bearing technology have been manuoil reservoirs on compressors for the NOVA Gas Trans- factured by Danfoss in Florida.
mission Ltd. (NGTL) gas pipelines in Alberta, Canada.
This reduced the re hazard allowing a substantial re- As the development of the necessary components production in insurance costs. The success of these mag- gressed, scientic interest in the eld also increased,
netic bearing installations led NGTL to pioneer the re- peaking in the rst International Symposium on Magsearch and development of a digital magnetic bearing netic Bearings held in 1988 in Zurich with the foundcontrol system as a replacement for the analog control sys- ing of the International Society of Magnetic Bearings by
tems supplied by the American company Magnetic Bear- Prof. Schweitzer (ETHZ), Prof. Allaire (University of
ings Inc. In 1992, NGTLs magnetic bearing research Virginia), and Prof. Okada (Ibaraki University). Since
then, the symposium has developed into a biennial congroup formed the company Revolve Technologies Inc.
for commercializing the digital magnetic bearing technol- ference series with a permanent portal on magnetic bearogy. The company was later purchased by SKF of Swe- ing technology where all symposium contributions are
den. The French company S2M, founded in 1976, was made available. The web portal is supported by the interthe rst to commercially market active magnetic bear- national research and industrial community. Joining the
ings. Extensive research on magnetic bearings continues hall of fame and earning lifetime achievement awards in
at the University of Virginia in the Rotating Machinery 2012 were Prof. Yohji Okada, Prof. Gerhard Schweitzer,
and Michael Swann of Waukesha Magnetic Bearings .
and Controls Industrial Research Program .
Starting from 1996 the Dutch oil and gas company NAM
installed over a period of 10 years 20 large E-motor
driven (with variable speed drive) gas compressors of 3 Applications
23 MW fully equipped with active magnetic bearings on
both the E-motor and the compressor. These compres- Magnetic bearing advantages include very low and presors are used in the Groningen gas eld to extract the re- dictable friction, and the ability to run without lubricamaining gas from this large gas eld and to increase the tion and in a vacuum. Magnetic bearings are increas-

3
ingly used in industrial machines such as compressors, operate and works because the electrical currents generturbines, pumps, motors and generators.
ated by motion cause a restoring force.
Magnetic bearings are commonly used in watt-hour meters by electric utilities to measure home power consumption. They are also used in high-precision instruments
and to support equipment in a vacuum, for example in
ywheel energy storage systems. A ywheel in a vacuum has very low wind resistance 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, heavy weight and relatively large size.
A new application of magnetic bearings is in articial
hearts. The use of magnetic suspension in ventricular assist devices was pioneered by Prof. Paul Allaire and Prof.
Houston Wood at the University of Virginia, culminating
in the rst magnetically suspended ventricular assist centrifugal pump (VAD) in 1999.

5 See also
Flywheel
Levitron
Spin stabilized magnetic levitation

6 References
[1] Charles, D., Spinning a Nuclear Comeback, Science, Vol.
315, (30 March 2007)
[2] Beams, J. , Production and Use of High Centrifugal Fields,
Science, Vol. 120, (1954)

Future advances

[3] Beams, J. , Magnetic Bearings, Paper 810A, Automotive

Engineering Conference, Detroit, Michigan, USA, SAE
(Jan. 1964)
[4] Habermann,H. , Liard, G. Practical Magnetic Bearings ,
IEEE Spectrum, Vol. 16, No. 9, (September 1979)
[5] Schweitzer, G. , Characteristics of a Magnetic Rotor Bearing for Active Vibration Control, Paper C239/76, First International Conference on Vibrations in Rotating Machinery, (1976)
[6] Estelle Croot, Australian Inventors Weekly, NSW Inventors Association, Vol. 3, (April 1987)

An axial homopolar electrodynamic bearing

With the use of an induction-based levitation system

present in maglev technologies such as the Inductrack
system, magnetic bearings could replace complex control
systems by using Halbach Arrays and simple closed loop
coils. These systems gain in simplicity, but are less advantageous with regard to eddy current losses. For rotating
systems it is possible to use homopolar magnet designs
instead of multipole Halbach structures, which reduce
losses considerably.

[7] Kasarda, M. An Overview of Active Magnetic Bearing

Technology and Applications, The Shock and Vibration
Digest, Vol.32, No. 2: A Publication of the Shock and Vibration Information Center, Naval Research Laboratory,
(March 2000)
[8] Meeks, C.R., Magnetic Bearings - Optimum Design and
Application, Paper presented at the International Workshop on Rare Earth Cobalt Permanent Magnets, University of Dayton, Dayton, Ohio, October 1417, 1974
[9] Design and Analysis of a Novel Low Loss Homopolar
Electrodynamic Bearing. Lembke, Torbjrn. PhD Thesis. Stockholm: Universitetsservice US AB, 2005. ISBN
91-7178-032-7
[10] 3D-FEM Analysis of a Low Loss Homopolar Induction

An example that has bypassed the Earnshaws theorem

Bearing Lembke, Torbjrn. 9th International Sympoissues is the homopolar electrodynamic bearing invented
sium on Magnetic Bearings (ISMB9). Aug. 2004.
by Dr Torbjrn Lembke.[9][10][11] This is a novel type
of electromagnetic bearing based on a passive magnetic [11] Seminar at KTH the Royal Institute of Technology
Stockholm. Feb 24. 2010
technology. It does not require any control electronics to

Further reading
Schweitzer, G (2002). Proc. 6th Internat.
IFToMM Conf. on Rotor Dynamics. |chapter= ignored (help)
Chiba, A., Fukao, T., Ichikawa, O., Oshima, M.,
Takemoto, M., Dorrel, D. (2005). Magnetic Bearings and Bearingless Drives. Newnes.
Schweitzer, G., Maslen, H. (2009). Magnetic Bearings, Theory, Design,and Application to Rotating
Machinery. Springer.
Jim Wilson (September 1999). Beating Demon
Friction. Popular Mechanics.
Estelle Croot (19871995). Improved Magnetic
Bearings. IPAustralia [Australian Patent Oce
database entries].
T. Lembke (2005). PhD Thesis Design and Analysis of a Novel Low Loss Homopolar Electrodynamic
Bearing. Stockholm: Universitetsservice US AB.
ISBN 91-7178-032-7.

External links
Kinematic Models for Design Digital Library
(KMODDL) - Movies and photos of hundreds of
working mechanical-systems models at Cornell University. Also includes an e-book library of classic
texts on mechanical design and engineering.
MADYN2000, Rotordynamics Software supports
computer-aided design of Magnetic Bearing controllers and provides multiple analytic reports of design quality.

EXTERNAL LINKS

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