Lower cost permanent magnet-biased active magnetic bearings

Active magnetic bearing systems have many advantages – reduced power consumption compared to fluid film bearings, high reliability, elimination of oil supply systems, diagnostic capabilities, long-term reduced operating costs, and many more.  However, one of the challenges justifying active magnetic bearing selection in new designs is the up-front cost.

RBSI has developed new active magnetic bearing designs that reduce cost while providing comparable performance.  This is accomplished using permanent magnets to provide the bias.  This patent-pending bearing design eliminates half of the amplifiers compared to a conventional fully electromagnetic system.  Additionally, the heteropolar design has essentially the same size as a comparable fully electromagnetic design.  This reduces the possibility of critical speeds in the operating range compared to a conventional homopolar permanent magnet biased bearing.

These innovations reduce bearing implementation cost by up to 35%, while keeping the advantages of conventional fully electromagnetic active magnetic bearing systems.

RBSI specializes in custom active magnetic bearing designs, specific to your application.

For more information, see our recent paper, presented at the 15th meeting of the International Society of Magnetic Bearings.