Effect of Thrust Magnetic Bearing on Stability and Bifurcation of a Flexible Rotor Active Magnetic Bearing System

This paper is concerned with the effect of a thrust active magnetic bearing (TAMB) on the stability and bifurcation of an active magnetic bearing rotor system (AMBRS). The shaft is flexible and modeled by using the finite element method that can take the effects of inertia and shear into consideration. The model is reduced by a component mode synthesis method, which can conveniently account for nonlinear magnetic forces and moments of the bearing. Then the system equations are obtained by combining the equations of the reduced mechanical system and the equations of the decentralized PID controllers. This study focuses on the influence of nonlinearities on the stability and bifurcation of T periodic motion of the AMBRS subjected to the influences of both journal and thrust active magnetic bearings and mass eccentricity simultaneously. In the stability analysis, only periodic motion is investigated. The periodic motions and their stability margins are obtained by using shooting method and path-following technique. The local stability and bifurcation behaviors of periodic motions are obtained by using Floquet theory. The results indicate that the TAMB and mass eccentricity have great influence on nonlinear stability and bifurcation of the T periodic motion of system, cause the spillover of system nonlinear dynamics and degradation of stability and bifurcation of T periodic motion. Therefore, sufficient attention should be paid to these factors in the analysis and design of a flexible rotor system equipped with both journal and thrust magnetic bearings in order to ensure system reliability.