Investigations of the Behaviour of a Magnetically Suspended Rotor During Contact with Retainer Bearings

Retainer bearings play an importand role in equipping machines with Active Magnetic Bearings (AMBs). They shall guarantee the safety of a machine under possibly all loading conditions, a demand, which may especially become apparent in the field of aircraft applications. Situations of AMB power loss were already main object of research work, but investigations on AMBs and retainer bearings operating in a load sharing mode are widely missing. The concept of a test rig is presented, which shall provide the possibility to experimentally study various operating conditions for retainer bearings in AMBs, including the mentioned load sharing mode. Results gained from experiments with this rig, shall be used as a basis for a software tool, being develloped to analyze a variety of different system designs. A first approach of modelling dynamics during rotor drop due to AMB power loss is presented and discussed.