Dynamic Stiffness Analysis and Measurement of Radial Active Magnetic Bearing in Magnetically Suspended Molecular Pump

Abstract Current stiffness and displacement stiffness are two important parameters of radial active magnetic bearing (RAMB) that are generally considered as constants in a control system. However, such presumption may lead to the probable degradation of the control performance of the RAMB system when the perspective that the current and displacement stiffness should be variable due to variations in the speed. On this regard, a structure analysis and stiffness measurement method based on non-variable stiffness would not be feasible for RAMB under high-speed conditions. This paper presented an analysis of the dynamic stiffness characteristics of RAMB by means of a dynamic equivalent magnetic circuit method and laid out a comparison between the results of the theoretical analysis and the simulation results of finite element method. In particular, a novel dynamic stiffness measurement method of RAMB under high-rotation frequency was introduced. Results of experiments on the dynamic stiffness of RAMB demonstrated an excellent agreement with the theoretical research and the finite element analysis results, thereby verifying the rationality of the discussed dynamic stiffness characteristics. Practically, the proposed measurement method of RAMB dynamic stiffness provides an accurate analysis for the dynamic stiffness and contributes inspiring research significance for the dynamic properties of RAMB.