A Self-bearing Motor with a Passively Levitated Rotor

This paper proposes a passive self-bearing motor which combines two switched reluctance motors and a passive magneticbearing (PMB) based on the repulsion between permanent magnets. Its structural feature is that the cores of the motor, which are attached on both sides of the PMB, are also utilized as flux paths for permanent magnets. For a strong levitation force,the permanent magnets of PMB are stacked like Halbach array, and for rotation, it works just likea switched reluctance motor. Compared with conventional self-bearing motors which are mostly based on the theory of active magnetic bearings, the proposed self-bearingmotor has a very simple and small structure, and the production costis very low. Through some FEM analysis results, the feasibility of the proposed motor was confirmed and the design parameters were determined.