Development and Testing of the Code and Procedure for Balancing the Flexible Vertical Electromagnetically Suspended Rotor

It is known that the basic component of forces, which affects electromagnetic bearings (EMB), is centrifugal forces produced by the unbalanced rotor. The unbalanced forces must be reduced to the allowed level for the entire frequency band, including critical frequencies (GOST ISO 11342). For effective balancing, balancing weights shall be installed in accordance with actual rotor bending modes. Therefore, under research and development work carried out in JSC "Afrikantov OKBM" (Russia) activities are performed aimed at studying possibilities for balancing the flexible vertical rotor using EMBs in the machine. During this work, the special BALANS code and procedure for balancing the flexible rotor using EMBs were developed. At a small test facility having the vertical rotor [1, 2], experimental investigations were carried out to balance the flexible rotor using EMBs. Based on preliminary results, it is possible to balance the flexible vertical rotor using EMB without balancing the rotor in factory conditions. In 2011, JSC "Afrikantov OKBM" carried out work to balance the vertical rotor using electromagnetic suspension in the large test facility, i.e. in the Turbomachine (TM) Rotor Scale Model (RSM).