Experimental verification of energy-saving effect of a single-drive bearingless motor

This paper presents energy-saving effect of a single-drive bearingless motor. In the single-drive bearingles motor, only axial direction is actively positioned. The other radial and tilting directions are passively stabilized by repulsive passive magnetic bearings. Therefore, it has advantages of low cost, non-contact, maintenance-free and long life-time. In this paper, an additional advantage of energy-saving effect is verified. In experiments, the input power is measured with and without mechanical ball bearings. The bearingless motor can reduce input power because a magnetic suspension power is low compared with a mechanical bearing loss. In addition, it is found that the efficiency can be improved.