Preliminary Experiments on an Eddy Current Bearing

The present paper concerns a preliminary investigation on the forces produced by eddy currents for magnetic rotating bearing applications. These forces may be conveniently used to achieve stable contactless levitation without active control or superconducting materials, so that passive magnetic bearings operating at ambient temperature can be realised. The bearing configuration utilised here is such that no eddy losses occur in nominal condition. In this paper, details of force measurements of a type of rotating bearing configuration are presented. These, to the best of our knowledge, are not found in previous publications.