Complex and Integrated Methods for the Reliability Analysis of Contactless Magnetic Bearings

In many fields of energy technology the proof of reliability is required for the application of magnetic bearings. The application of active magnetic bearings in turbo machines for power plants is characterized by extreme process and environmental conditions. The parameters varie-gate due to manufacturing tolerances and the influence of specific operation and load conditions of the control loop components of a magnetic bearing. That involves a load-dependent reliabil-ity of the bearing components. Therefore an active magnetic bearing which is under nominal conditions in terms of its function, may fail due to drifts of mechanical, electrical and magnetic parameters. The objective of this project is the reliability analysis of active magnetic bearings considering their nonlinearities. The analysis will be carried out by means of appropriate methods which consider the specific fuzzy parameters compared to conventional approaches. The part failure probability of the several components will be determined by Monte-Carlo-Simulations. The fail-ure probability of the whole system will be summarized by use of a fault tree analysis. Whether any components have to be integrated redundantly/diversely will be determined in the early de-sign process.