Abstract: In view of the complexity in measuring the dynamic stiffness and damping of active magnetic bearings(AMB), a set of measurement system is designed for automatic measurement thereof. The vibration exciter is produced by a self-developed LabVIEW measurement system, the magnetic bearing sensor serves as vibration pickup and a self-developed measurement and analysis system as measurement and analysis instrument. The measurement results of stiffness and damping for active magnetic bearings is presented, and it shows that the result can guide controller design for AMB and model analysis of the rotor. Because of the active magnetic bearing having the characteristics such as controllable stiffness and damping, the parameters of its control system can be selected through the use of the concepts such as equivalent stiffness and damping. Thus, the design process can be simplified. The feasibility of the design method is verified by means of a concrete analysis of a prototype bench in laboratory. In addition, the analysis results show that satisfactory damping effect can be achieved if the control parameters are selected rationally.

Key words: Active magnetic bearing (AMB), Damping, Stiffness