Arsénio Costa, A.J.; Fernandes, J.F.P.; Costa Branco, P.J. Axial Stiffness Augmentation by adding Superconductor Bulks or Limiting Permanent Magnet Rings to a Horizontal Axis Zero-Field Cooled High-Tc Radial Passive Superconducting Bearing. Actuators2024, 13, 196.
Arsénio Costa, A.J.; Fernandes, J.F.P.; Costa Branco, P.J. Axial Stiffness Augmentation by adding Superconductor Bulks or Limiting Permanent Magnet Rings to a Horizontal Axis Zero-Field Cooled High-Tc Radial Passive Superconducting Bearing. Actuators 2024, 13, 196.
Arsénio Costa, A.J.; Fernandes, J.F.P.; Costa Branco, P.J. Axial Stiffness Augmentation by adding Superconductor Bulks or Limiting Permanent Magnet Rings to a Horizontal Axis Zero-Field Cooled High-Tc Radial Passive Superconducting Bearing. Actuators2024, 13, 196.
Arsénio Costa, A.J.; Fernandes, J.F.P.; Costa Branco, P.J. Axial Stiffness Augmentation by adding Superconductor Bulks or Limiting Permanent Magnet Rings to a Horizontal Axis Zero-Field Cooled High-Tc Radial Passive Superconducting Bearing. Actuators 2024, 13, 196.
Abstract
This paper analyses the viability of different solutions to passively augment the axial stiffness of a horizontal axis radial levitation passive magnetic bearing (PMB) with topology previously studied. The zero-field cooling (ZFC) of high-temperature superconductor (HTS) bulks promotes higher magnetic impulsion and levitation forces and lower electromagnetic losses than with the field-cooling (FC), but on the other hand, the guiding stability is much lower than with FC. Because of stability reasons, FC was adopted in most superconducting maglev systems. The trend of this research group has been to develop an HTS ZFC horizontal axis radial levitation PMB presenting notable levitation forces with reduced electromagnetic losses, defined by a topology that creates guiding stability. Previous work has shown that even optimizing the bearing geometry to maximize magnetic guidance forces, could not be enough to guarantee the axial stiffness required for many applications. First, the extent to which guidance forces are augmented by increasing the number of HTS bulks in the stator is evaluated. Then, the axial stiffness augmentation by passively adding two limiting permanent magnet (PM) rings is evaluated. Results show that the axial stiffness is highly augmented by adding limiting PM rings with no significant additional investment. This change enables using the studied ZFC superconducting PMB in high-precision axial stability applications, such as precision gyroscopes, horizontal axis propellers and turbines.
Engineering, Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
