Vibration Mitigation of Rotors Suspended on Low-Cost Hybrid Gas Foil Bearing
Abstract The hybrid Gas Foil Bearings combining the Gas Foil Bearing and Active Magnetic Bearing is a possibility for application in high-speed turbomachinery and a few developments have been made in this context. As such, the cost of conventional Gas Foil Bearing increases due to its requirement of precise manufacturing method and the coating material for the top foil and bump foil. In case of Active Magnetic Bearing, the normal electrical arrangement includes a multiplicity of independently controlled current sources usually at least four drives per bearing which increases its cost. Therefore, the hybrid Gas Foil Bearing will have much higher cost. In this work, a new electrical arrangement for the electromagnetic actuators of the hybrid Gas Foil Bearing has been proposed. The new arrangement requires only two drives per bearing and the bias current has been provided (in the same set of windings) through a simple rectifier with small series choke and shunt capacitor. As the number of drives required is less, the proposed bearing will have low cost. Implementing the new approach, the force vectors are achieved using only two current-source drives whereas the usual conventional arrangement requires four such drives. Numerical simulations are performed to explore the capabilities of the low cost bearing.