Design of Magnetically Levitated Mechanism for Micro-Scale Materials Multifunction Testing Device

This paper presents the structural design and working principle of a magnetically levitated mechanism developed for a multifunctional micro-scale materials testing device. To enable testing in special environments, the micro-scale specimen and essential levitated components should be physically separated from the main device, ensuring mechanical contact. The levitation mechanism of the device is designed using three U-shaped hybrid electromagnets and a plate float. With three HEMs, the system can achieve actively controls in three degrees of freedom, including linear motion along the Z axis and tilting motion around the X and Y axes. This guarantees that the levitation plate float can be remain horizontally levitated and held in a constant position in vertical direction. In addition, the working principles of the loading modes are also introduced. At last, to verify the levitation capacity of the system, a finite element analysis using JMAG is conducted to describe the relationship among levitation force, current, and air gap length.