Progress in Calibrating Active Magnetic Bearings with Numerical and Experimental Approaches

This paper shows numerical approaches to simulate the static solution for magnetic bearings. The virtual work method is used to compute the force from the vector potential field. The partial differential equation for static magnetic fields is derived from theory and solved with an FEM approach. This is done using two different software programs, MATLAB and the open-source software femm. Also, a test rig is presented to validate the calculated forces. The results provide good conformity although deeper research needs to be done on material characterization. At the end, an outlook is given for use of calibrated magnetic bearings and also where further research is necessary.