On the Control of Single Stage Centrifugal Compressor Surge with Active Magnetic Bearings

This paper presents a comprehensive step-by-step description of how to design and implement an Active Magnetic Bearing (AMB) based compressor surge controller, including experimental control results to demonstrate the effectiveness of the given approach. First, we provide a com-plete description of the industrial-size compressor test rig with AMBs that was specifically built for this study. Next, a detailed derivation of the dynamic equations describing the compressor flow is presented. The compressor model is later used in the synthesis of the model-based surge controller algorithm, which is implemented in the compressor test rig and tested experimentally. Illustrative details of the controller design, implementation, and testing are included.