Multi-DOF rotor model based measurement of stiffness and damping for active magnetic bearing using multi-frequency excitation

• Comparing AMB with traditional mechanical bearing.
• Parameters identification for AMB supporting.
• Multi-DOF rotor model based measurement.
• Lowest peak value of multi-frequency signal superposition.
• Avoid great rotor vibration and magnetic force saturation.

To represent the support characteristic of active magnetic bearings (AMB), the commonly used parameters are the equivalent stiffness and the equivalent damping, which inherit the parameters of the stiffness and the damping from traditional mechanical bearings. First, by analyzing the diversity and the similarity between traditional mechanical bearing and AMB, the prior condition for applying the parametric representation of equivalent stiffness and equivalent damping to AMB is illuminated. Then, a method for measuring the equivalent stiffness and the equivalent damping of AMB-rotor system is proposed with multi-frequency excitation. One of its outstanding features is that the proposed method is based on the multi-degree of freedom (DOF) rotor model, not the single- DOF model, because the single DOF model cannot be suitably applied to the multi-DOF AMB-rotor systems. Otherwise, in order to decrease the identification error, the multi-frequency excitation can achieve the lowest peak value by means of appropriate selection for the relative phasing of each component, so that the possibility of the rotor displacement exceeding clearances of AMB and the magnetic force reaching saturation is minimized. Finally, the experiments, which are carried out on an AMB-rotor test rig with a vertical shaft, indicate that the proposed method can efficiently reduce the peak value for the superimposed multi-frequency excitation and correctly identify the equivalent stiffness and equivalent damping of AMB-rotor system.