Design criteria and limiting characteristics

Abstract

Initially, three decades ago, active magnetic bearings (AMB) have been designed to overcome the deficiencies of conventional journal or ball bearings. Mostly in research labs, they showed their ability to work in vacuum with no lubrication and no contamination, or to run at high speed, and to shape novel rotor dynamics. Today, magnetic bearings have been introduced into the industrial world as a very valuable machine element with quite a number of novel features, and with a vast range of diverse applications. © 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.