Abstract
In this paper the structure is shown of a newly designed apparatus for experimental study on magnetic bearings. A common-type totally active magnetic bearing is composed of an axial bearing, two radial bearings and motor stator. Since a magnetic bearing system is usually designed to be fit for a certain use, for an example, grinding or vacuum pumping and to operate under the special conditions, the arrangement of the components is fixed. Such a system, however, tends to lack in flexibility as an experimental setup used for various purposes. In the developed apparatus each component of a magnetic bearing forms a unit. Since units can be combined and arranged in various ways according to trying experiments, it can be adapted for many applications, for example, an experimental study on control of a flexible shaft. In this research the apparatus is used to demonstrate the ability of compensation for unbalance, which has been proposed by the authors, to prevent the suspended rotor from whirling due to unbalance by cancelling unbalance forces by electromagnetic forces.
