Transient Response Technique Applied to Active Magnetic Bearing Machinery During Rotor Drop

Abstract The active magnetic bearing (AMB) is a relatively new technology which has many advantages compared with conventional bearing design. In an AMB system, the rolling-element back-up bearings are indispensable to protect the magnetic bearing rotor and stator, and other stationary seals along the rotor shaft. In this paper, a theoretical formulation is proposed and solved numerically to examine the transient response of the flexible rotor, from the time just previous to the AMB shuts down and including the rotor drop onto the back-up bearing. The backward whirl of the rotor, which may lead to the destructive damage of the machiner, has been analytically predicted at very light support damping and very high support damping. Also, the vibration due to the non-linearity of the contact point geometry has been included in the analysis. The influence of the support damping on the displacement of the disk and also the contact force between the journal and the inner-race of the back-up bearing have been computed for various rotor system parameters.