Vibration Control of a Turbo Molecular Pump Suspended by Active Magnetic Bearings

Abstract

In a turbo molecular pump suspended by active magnetic bearings (AMBs), vibration caused by the rotor’s bending modes, gyroscopic effects and structure vibration modes influenced the pump performance and even cause instability. Different methods were used to deal with these problems. A Cross Feedback method was effective in restraining the nutation and precession of the rotor. A Phase Shaping method provided sufficient damping for the 1st bending mode of the rotor. The structure vibration instability was avoided by adjusting the joint strength between two parts of the pump housing. The gyroscopic effects also destroyed the stability of unbalance control algorithms for the AMBs at a high rotation speed. It was shown that, to ensure the stability of the controller when the unbalance control algorithms were applied, the 1st bending frequency of the rotor should be increased. Experiment results concerning the problems discussed above were provided. With a suitable controller design and an appropriate consideration of the dynamic problems, the rotor was successfully accelerated to 27 000 rpm.