Analysis and Compensation of Hysteresis Effect on Electromagnetic Force in Axial Magnetic Bearings

Magnetic bearings (MBs) enable the rotor to run at high speed without lubrication due to no mechanical contact. However, the inherent hysteresis of ferromagnetic materials affects the support characteristics, reducing the design performance and stability margin of MBs, especially for axial MBs using materials with high coercive force. To analyze and compensate for the hysteresis effect on the electromagnetic force in axial MBs, an efficient method is proposed in this paper. Firstly, the hysteresis properties of the ferromagnetic materials are simulated by the Preisach model, and the
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relationships under any external magnetic field can be determined. Taking into account the non-ideal factors such as hysteresis and saturation effects, the nonlinear magnetic circuit model of the axial MBs is established. The magnetic flux density working point under different control currents and eccentric displacements can be determined through iterative calculation, and then the air gap flux density distribution and electromagnetic force of the axial MBs are calculated. On this basis, the adverse effects of hysteresis on the bearing capacity and system stability of axial MBs are analyzed. A compensation algorithm is designed based on the inverse model to reduce the hysteresis effect. The inverse model is approximated modeled by the Lissajous curve. Finally, the proposed analysis and control methods are verified by the finite element method (FEM) or experiments. The results show that the proposed analysis method is capable of accomplishing good accuracy and requires less computation time than FEM, it can be applied to arbitrary current variation processes. In addition, the phase lag of the system is effectively improved with the compensation algorithm.