Application of soft magnetic composites in active magnetic bearings

One of the main application areas of active magnetic bearings is turbo machinery. Such machines run at high speeds and through application of magnetic bearing bearings mechanical contact and friction between rotor and stator can be avoided. Nevertheless magnetic bearings still cause rotor losses through eddy currents and magnetic hysteresis effects. Although these losses are way smaller than those caused by friction, in vacuum they still can cause the rotor to overheat because of the severely limited cooling. This paper presents a way to address these losses by using soft magnetic composites as active material in a magnetically suspended rotor.