Vibration optimized magnetic rotor suspension with individual permanent magnets

An investigation of a vibration-optimized arrangement of individual permanent magnets for radial magnetic suspension of a machine rotor is presented. The individual permanent magnets are arranged to form a ring on the rotor which is aligned with an adjacent ring formed by individual permanent magnets on the stator. In contrast to previous work, a spacing between the individual permanent magnets is explicitly considered to facilitate the incorporation of the magnet arrangement into a 3D printed machine design. The investigation is performed with finite element analysis using open source software GetDP and Gmsh. The analysis results are compared to test bench measurements for two selected bearing configurations.