To measure current stiffness and displacement stiffness of permanent magnet biased radial magnetic bearing, a new stiffness measurement method is proposed for magnetically suspended flywheel (MSFW). The detailed stiffness measurement method is proposed in this paper. At first, the suspension force and stiffness characteristics of the permanent magnet biased radial magnetic bearing are studied using magnetic circuit method and finite element method (FEM). Second, the detailed stiffness measurement method of permanent magnet biased radial magnetic bearing is proposed. It has two procedures, one is the determination of the magnetic center in radial magnetic bearing when the gravity of rotor is in the +x(+y) direction and −x(−y) direction, respectively, then the current stiffness can be obtained, and the other is the calculation of the displacement stiffness according to the relationship between rotor displacement and current. A prototyped MSFW with angular moments of 50 Nms is manufactured, and the proposed stiffness measurement method of permanent magnet biased radial magnetic bearing is verified by prototyped experiments.
Accurate modelling based on a subdomain method for heteropolar radial magnetic bearing with a solid rotor
