Magnetic bearings are being actively adopted by the turbo-chiller industry because of their higher efficiency during partial load, quieter operation, and smaller footprint than that which machines with ball bearings provide. Since magnetic bearings are open-loop unstable, feedback control is necessary. In the industry, traditional PID-based control is preferred to model-based control, because of its simplicity. When traditional control algorithms are used, significant resources are required to obtain and tune control parameters, which is an impediment to the widespread use of magnetic bearing technology in the industry. In this paper, we propose a mixed optimization method by combining genetic algorithm and sequential quadratic programming. To obtain the initial guess to be used for the mixed optimization, a phase-margin maximization algorithm is also proposed, based on the rigid-body model of the system. Mixed optimization results in suitable control parameters in less than 2.8% of the time it takes a genetic algorithm only to find similar solutions. The proposed optimization also ensures the robustness of the control parameters. The output sensitivity measured from a prototype compressor with magnetic bearings confirms the validity of the control parameters.

Magnetic bearings use electromagnetic force to support the rotating shaft without any mechanical contact and actively control shaft vibration; hence, there is no mechanical friction and wear due to contact during the operation, and it has a semi-permanent lifespan. Because magnetic bearings are unstable by themselves, a gap sensor is necessary to stably control the position of objects. However, there is a limit to the improvement in control performance because the sensor is installed on one side of the bearing and is not aligned with the electromagnet. This paper presents a newly developed collocated eddy-current PCB displacement sensor for magnetic bearings. The PCB sensor is designed and built to install between the poles of a magnetic bearing and to minimize the electromagnetic interference. A sensor calibration test is performed to evaluate the sensitivity and noise of the collocated PCB sensor. In addition, the control performance of the collocated PCB sensor is evaluated by measuring the closed-loop sensitivity function of a 1 DOF magnetic suspension test rig. The collocated PCB sensor has noise within ±1 μm and excellent vibration suppression performance.

Since sCO₂ (Supercritical Carbon Dioxide) turbomachinery are generally small and operate at high rotational speed, the bearings remain a significant challenge to the design of the turbomachinery for the sCO₂ power cycles. However, a fluid induced instability similar to the oil whirl may occur even with the magnetic bearing under high pressure and high speed conditions of the sCO₂ turbomachinery. This paper presents experimental investigation on the instability of a sCO₂ compressor supported by the magnetic bearing. First, we introduce the sCO₂ compressor supported by the magnetic bearing. The procedure to guarantee the rotordynamic performance of the sCO₂ compressor supported by the magnetic bearing is provided. Then, the effects of the working condition such as the pressure and rotating speed on the fluid induced instability are investigated experimentally. Finally, a strategy to resolve the fluid-induced instability with conventional PID control is proposed and experimentally verified.