A case study for a superconducting magnetic bearing optimization

Superconducting magnetic bearings have high potential use in flywheel energy storage systems. In these systems, the rotor stability is one of the most challenging issues and it is closely related to the rotor's levitation configuration. We have investigated the effect of various levitation configurations on the levitation force and stability of the rotor. A case study is introduced to discuss the optimization of the bearing, via arraying permanent magnets and superconductors in certain configurations. The force calculations are performed by using frozen image model based on the Amperian current approximation. It was determined that the optimum levitation of the rotor strongly depends on the superconductor and permanent magnet configurations in the bearing.