Nonlinear Vibration Properties of a Current-Controlled Attractive Type Maglev System

Because maglev system has very complicated dynamic properties due to nonlinearity of the magnetic force, it is a very interesting study subject for dynamics researchers. We, in this paper, focused our study interest on a current-controlled attractive type maglev system, and analyzed its nonlinear vibration properties by numerical simulation method. The current-controlled attractive type maglev system is a feedback system based on a PD-controller that adjusts the current of the electromagnet to stably levitate a body with constant gap. The ranges of the system’s feedback gains with which the system will be stable are determined by nonlinear system dynamics analysis. From the numerical simulation results, we found out that when the system is excited by a harmonic motion, the levitated body of the system shows many kinds of vibration phenomena with the variation of the system’s feedback gains in their available ranges. Especially, chaotic vibrations can also occur in this maglev system for some suitable system’s feedback gains.