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ISMB14

Keynotes

We are very proud to announce the preliminary list of keynote speakers for ISMB14. The excellent representatives from diverse industrial and academic partners show the broad diversification that magnetic bearings have reached. We want to thank all keynote speakers for their envolvement!

 

Prof. Paul Allaire

Chief Technical Officer, Rotor Bearing Solutions International, USA
Also, Mac Wade Professor, University of Virginia, Retired

Mu Synthesis Control of High Speed Flexible Rotor on Active Magnetic Bearings Simulating High Pressure Compressors with Aerodynamic Cross Coupling

 

Paul Allaire, Simon Mushi, Zongli Lin

 

Many industrial companies are adopting magnetic bearings for high speed compressors at this time. A flexible rotor test rig of approximately 1.2 m in length was developed with four active magnetic radial bearings. It was employed to evaluate the control of aerodynamic cross coupling stiffness in the center of the machine.

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The two end AMBs were used for support, one center AMB used to apply the cross coupled stiffness. The fourth AMB was employed as a system exciter. Unfortunately for the compressor manufacturer and the end user, often the magnitude of the cross coupled stiffness changes with various compressor operating conditions. Mu synthesis control was used to achieve very nice control and low vibration response with the selection of useful uncertainty weighting functions when the controller does not have advance notice of the cross coupling amplitude. The shaft operated up to about 18,000 rpm, through the first critical speed which was at approximately 14,000 rpm. Details of the application of the mu synthesis controller implementation are presented.

Prof. Hannes Bleuler

Director Robotic Systems Lab, EPFL Lausanne, Switzerland

Overview of the various types of magnetic bearings and their respective potential for applications

 

We all know many very different types of AMBs such as “active”, “passive”, “electromagnetic”, “electrodynamic” etc. In this keynote, I propose to briefly review the known basic configurations and then discuss why certain types are very common, while others are either nearly forgotten or seem uninteresting for practical applications. More importantly, I will try to identify a few types which might have as yet unexploited potential for future applications.

Matthias Kroll

CEO LEViTEC GmbH, Germany

Electric Drives Systems with Active Magnetic Bearings in Industrial Applications: Possibilities and Challenges

 

High speed drive systems will be playing an even more important role in industrial applications. They are used in the chemical and food industry, as well as in power generation and in machine tools. The drive systems in the mentioned applications have to meet high standards. Furthermore, there is an increasing demand for reliability and productivity of machines and plants, which also includes high power density and efficiency. Due to the high requirements, active magnetic bearings are increasingly used. To achieve the best technical and economical solution for the customer, it is necessary to consider the strong interaction between the system components as well as manufacturing aspects. This provides the best solution with significant benefits for the end user.

Florian Lösch

CEO MECOS AG

Industrialisation of Active Magnetic Bearing Technology

 

This keynote describes the development of Magnetic Bearings from their origin as a highly innovative concept to an industrial product, a path that was strongly influenced by technological innovation as well as non-technological boundary constraints. Starting from the pilot applications, key scientific and technological advancements that paved the way for large scale application in industrial products are highlighted. It is shown that besides the technical aspects also complex economic factors must be taken into consideration if one is to understand the technology’s industrial evolution to date and to make predictions for the future.

Jiri Sloupensky

Vice President of Product Research, Rieter CZ s.r.o., Czech Republic

Magnetic Bearings: Application to High Speed Textile Processing

 

This keynote describes the history and actual status of a successful mechatronic industry- academia project, related to the rotor spinning textile process. This textile technology was invented in Czech Republic in 1960’s and brought a revolution to the yarn spinning industry. The key factor for the productivity of rotor spinning machines is the speed of the spinning rotor. Conventional machines are equipped with different types of mechanical bearings with limited lifetime due to the heavy duty operation. The target of this project was to develop new concept of single-drive rotor spinning unit magnetic bearing and at the same time use as many synergies as possible, given by this new concept, also for improving the textile process.

Michael K. Swann

General Manager, Waukesha Magnetic Bearings, USA

Industrialisation Trends for Active Magnetic Bearings in the Turbomachinery Industry

 

As the adoption rate of active magnetic bearings in the turbomachinery industry continues to increase, leading magnetic bearing suppliers have been meeting customer expectations by transforming what was once a university laboratory development into a well accepted industrial product. In turbomachinery applications for oil & gas and power generation this has meant the globalisation of not only sales and services functions, but also key project engineering, product development and manufacturing functions as well. This talk briefly examines the history of these trends up through the present day and what one supplier sees as the future of this industry.