Optimized Realization of Fault-Tolerant Heteropolar Magnetic Bearings

Flux coupling in heteropolar magnetic bearings permits remaining active coils to assume actions of failed coils to produce force resultants identical to the un-failed actuator. This fault-tolerant control usually reduces load capacity because the redistribution of the magnetic flux which compensates for the failed coils leads to premature saturation in the stator or journal. A distribution matrix of voltages which consists of a redefined biasing voltage vector and two control voltage vectors can be optimized in a manner that reduces the peak flux density. An elegant optimization method using the Lagrange multiplier is presented in this paper. The linearized control forces can be realized up to certain combination of 5 poles failed for the 8 pole magnetic bearing. Position stiffness and voltage stiffness are calculated for the fault-tolerant magnetic bearings. Simulations show that fault-tolerant control of the multiple poles failed magnetic bearings with a horizontal flexible rotor can be achieved with reduced load capacity. [S0739-3717(00)01103-X]