INVESTIGATION OF A NOVEL MAGNETIC ACTUATOR APPLY TO

CONTROLLABLE SQUEEZE FILM DAMPER

Truong Quoc Thanh, Ahn Kyoung Kwan, Jong Yoon IL

School of Mechanical and Automotive Engineering, University of Ulsan

San 29, Muger 2 dong, Nam-gu, Ulsan 680-749, Korea
thanhctm75@yahoo.com, kkahn@ulsan.ac.kr

ABSTRACT

In this work, a self-tuning fuzzy PID controller is applied to control the position of a novel Linear
Magnetic Actuator (LMA) which is used to move the outer damper of the Conical Squeeze Film
Damper (CSFD). Since the systems are disturbed by unknown factors beside their inherent
nonlinearity, self-tuning fuzzy PID controller is used by tuning the parameters of the PID controller
thereby integrating fuzzy inference and producing a fuzzy adaptive PID controller which can improve
the control performance of nonlinear systems. Experimental results of position control of LMA using
conventional and self-tuning fuzzy PID controllers are both included in this paper.

1. INTRODUCTION conventional PID controllers have been

Nowadays, LMA plays an important role in
the industrial actuator. Several researches on
the magnetic actuators based on the
electromagnetic effect such as linear magnetic
actuator, tubular permanent-magnet
generator/machine, linear oscillo-actuator and
generator have been developed. Its applications
were inserted to linear solenoid actuator, the
high-speed packing, manufacturing sensor,
machine tool sliding tables, pen recorder, etc.
[1-4]. Another study has focused mainly on
improving the ability of permanent magnet by
fixation and convert wave energy into electrical
field through direct drive [5]. The magnetic
force caused by the electrical magnetic effect to
move the mover with accuracy position is
needed. Therefore, the control algorithm is
required to improve control performance of the
actuator in this application.
The PID controller is widely used in
industrial control applications, only three
parameters (the proportional- the integral- the
derivative) are needed to set the system
operation. Nevertheless, it does not work very
well for nonlinear systems, high order and time-
delay linear system and so on. In order to
overcome these restrictions of the PID
controller, various types of modified
improved such as auto-tuning and adaptive PID
controller. Furthermore, a new type of
controller will be obtained by a combination of
neural-network or fuzzy and PID [6-9]. Many
simulation and practical examples of the
combined controller have been given to show
higher performance than of the PID
conventional controller.
In reference [10], Hybrid Squeeze Film
Dampers were proposed for using active
vibration control of rotors. The basic ideal is to
control the flow in SFD through the movable
seals, thus achieving the ability to change the
damper from short to long damper and vice
versa. The working related to CSFD which
consider the influence of the working clearance
and oil film stiffness of the bearing was
presented [11]. As reported, the notion is to
regulate the radial clearance by a parameter x
corresponding to the position of a CSFD. In
addition, an active SFD using a movable
conical damper ring was proposed in [12].
Our work develops a new type of LMA
used to move the outer damper of CSFD. The
experiment results illustrate basically a concept
of electromagnetic effect as well as the
interaction force between electromagnet and
permanent magnet. Using conventional and
self-tuning fuzzy PID controllers to control the Coil
position of LMA is considered.

Sliding
2. THE NOVEL MAGNETIC ACTUATOR bearing
Retaining
spring N S S N
2.1 An overview in CSFD

A conventional SFD is a bearing assembly

for supporting the shaft of high-speed rotor. It
basically combines a bearing and damping oil
film so as to determine a support provided with Fig.2 Mechanical model of LMA
a suitable damping action. The problem of
vibration in rotordynamics is commonly faced
with passive squeeze fluid film or elastomeric
dampers. Nevertheless, the damping effect
varies with the rotational speed. The damping
coefficient of fluid film belongs to the radial
clearance of fluid film, it means that the Fig.3 The moving respond according to the type
damping is low or high respect to the clearance poles of electromagnetic
small or big. The model of CSFD is shown in
figure 1. The design of LMA with the avoidance of
magnetic material in adapter is very important.
2.2 Mechanical model of the novel magnetic Hence, the outer damper is made by non-
actuator ferromagnetic material (SUS 304). The air gap
between the end of U-Shape coil and permanent
The apparatus is shown schematically in magnet is the working area. As DC current
figure 2. The mover (outer damper) can move supplies to the coil, the magnetic flux will be
in longitudinal direction, it is supported by the created between the two ends of U-shape.
linear bearing. Two permanent magnets with Therefore, the magnetism effect between
opposite poles are mounted on the outer damper. electromagnet and permanent magnet generates
The retaining spring is necessary to be installed the force to move the outer damper. Figure 3
to backup the outer damper after the coil presents the dependence of the electro-magnetic
deenergized. There are two compressed springs poles and the moving direction of the mover on
with re-stress for an initial position at the the direction of DC current. The magnetic force
middle of working area. The variant of the of the actuator depends partly on the position of
magnetic force value is very sensitive with the the mover and partly on DC current. It has been
position of the outer damper. The magnitude of known, if two magnets with the same poles
magnetic force is smallest and biggest at the close together, the magnetic force will push the
middle and the side, respectively. Otherwise, magnet apart and vice versa. If DC current
the remaining purpose of the retaining spring is supplies to the coil, the ends of the U-shape
applied to reduce the nonlinear force as also electromagnetic will become two poles of the
decreasing the magnetic force at the side magnet. Therefore, it will define the moving
position of the working region. direction of the mover in right or left direction.

+ χ -
Y Y
Outer Damper
α L
K
L
ω
j

K
O2
θ ϕ
Ye O2 Z x e γ
O1 Xe O1
R+C J
h
R

J
I

Fig. 4 The electromagnetic coil (U-shape)

Fig.1 Conical squeeze-film damper model
 As a result of the movement of the outer
damper forward or backward, the clearance
between the outer damper and the inner one
(fixed in longitudinal direction) is reduced or
extended respectively. The dynamic
characteristic of CSFD will be changed due to
the change of the clearance. Furthermore, it will
effectively enhance the dynamic behavior of the
Fig.5 Structure of self turning PID controller
rotating shaft work at high operating speed of
machinery.
Figure 5 presents the structure of self
In figure 4, the electromagnetic coil (U-
turning PID controller. It has the form of PID
shape) is constituted by the copper wire with
structure with the PID parameters which are
600 turns and 1 mm in diameter, the frame of
tuned by fuzzy inference. By providing a
U-shape is made of soft-ferromagnetic material.
nonlinear mapping from the error signal e(t),
and derivation of error, de(t) to the PID
parameters Kp, Ki and Kd . These parameters are
3. CONTROLLER DESIGN changed within the initial parameter boundaries.
This controller has been applied to control
3.1 Structure of self-tuning fuzzy PID position of shape memory alloy actuator
controller
showing the benefit and reliability as in [8]. In
this paper, for simplicity but it is not less
The PID controller is widely used in
reliability, the controller is designed to tune Kp
industry due to its simple control structure and
and Ki within the boundary as shown in figure 6.
easy design. In time domain, the PID controller
can be written as follows:

de(t )
u (t ) = K p + K d + K i ∫ e(t ) dt (1)
dt

where e(t)=ysp(t)-y(t) is the system error, u(t) is Fig.6 Structure of the fuzzy inference block
the control signal, Kp is the proportional gain, Ki
is the integral gain, Kd is the derivative gain. 3.2 Fuzzy-PID design
However, there are certain problems that
encountered in practical control systems. The Suppose that the variable ranges of Kp and
parameters of the conventional PID controller Ki are [Kpmin, Kpmax] and [Kimin, Kimax]
are not often properly tuned for the nonlinear respectively. In the position control problem of
plant with unpredictable parameter variations. LMA actuators, the range of each PID
For this reason, it is necessary to automatically parameter was experimentally determined as
tune the PID parameters. The fuzzy logic can be
follows: Kp ∈ [5, 15]; Ki ∈ [0.5, 4] while the
used to change the PID parameter values during
derivative Kd is constant (Kd=0.005). In order to
the operation. The fuzzy controller provides a
obtain feasible rule bases with high inference
formal methodology for representing,
efficiency, the PID parameters must be
manipulating, and implementing a human’s
normalized over the interval [0, 1] as follows:
heuristic knowledge about how to control a
system. This is also a convenient method for
K p − K p min Kp −5
constructing nonlinear controllers by using K p' = = (2)
heuristic information obtained from experience. K p max − K p min 15 − 5
Therefore, the advantages of fuzzy and PID
controllers can be incorporated into a controller K i − K i min K − 0.5
in order to achieve high control performance. K i' = = i (3)
Ki max − Ki min 4 − 0.5
We have: K p = 10 K 'p + 5 ; K i = 3.5 K i' + 0.5
The linguistic levels assigned to the input
variables [e(t) ,de(t)] and output variables
[ K p' K i' ] are as follows:
Table 1 Control rule-base
Neg Zero
Neg B M
Zero M S
Pos B M
Neg: negative; Zero: zero; Pos: positive; B:
big; M: medium and S: small. The membership
functions for input and output variables are
shown in figure 7.
Fig.7 Membership functions of
input and output variables
The control rule-bases deal with the fuzzy
rule, {IF Ai and Bi THEN Ci} are shown in
Table 1. Generally, the fuzzy rules are
dependent on the plant to be controlled and the
type of the controller. These rules are
determined from intuition or practical
experience. The rule sets are established and
shown in surfaces in figure 8.
In this paper, the MAX–MIN fuzzy
reasoning method is used to obtain output from
the inference rule and the present input. For a
given specific input fuzzy set A’ in U, the output
fuzzy set B’ in O for K p' is computed through
the inference engine as follows:
m performance of experimental is considered by
µ B ( K 'p ) = max[supmin( µ A ( x ), µ A (e(t )),
' '
l =1 x∈U
µ A (de(t )), µ B ( K ))] '
l
2
l p
The output membership function for K i' is
computed similarly.
Pos
B
M
B
Fig.8 Fuzzy control rule of K’p and K’i
The centroid defuzzification method is used
to convert the aggregated fuzzy set to a scrip
output value y* from the fuzzy set B’ in V ⊂ R .
This work computes the weighted average of
the membership function or the center of
gravity of the area bounded by the membership
function curves:
∫µ B'
( y ) ydy
(5)
y* = V
∫µ
V
B'
( y )dy
The crisp value of K p' and K i' are
computed by using the expression (5).
4. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
The apparatus is established to control the
position of the outer damper shown in figure 9.
The displacement of the outer damper is
measured by a high precision displacement
transducer and fed to the computer through an
A/D Advantech PCI-1711 card. The mechanical
structure of CSFD is depicted in figure 10. The
l
(4) two kinds of reference input signals: sine and
1
step reference. Both of the PID conventional
and self-tuning fuzzy PID controllers are
applied to obtain the results.
 Error of PID controller

The PID controller with Kp=10, Ki=2 and 0.5

Kd= 0.005 is used in the conventional PID 0.25

Error (mm)
controller. 0

-0.25

-0.5
0 5 10 15
Time (s)

Error of Fuzzy&PID controller

0.5

0.25

Error (mm)
0

-0.25

-0.5
0 5 10 15
Time (s)

Fig.11 Steady state error respect to sine

reference input

Fig. 9 Experimental apparatus

Kp
12

11

10

Through the figure 10 to figure 12, the 8

experimental results respected to sine reference 6

5
0 5 10 15

are described. The system response and the 4

Time (s)

Ki

signal output are given in figure 10. The steady 3.5

state error and the parameters (Kp, Ki) are 2.5

shown in figures 11 and 12, respectively. 2

1.5

1
5 10 15 20
Time (s)

10.8 PID
Fig.12 The changes of Kp and Ki of self-tuning
9.1 Fuzzy-PID controller
Reference
D is plac em ent(m m )

7.4

5.7

2.3

0.6

-1.1
0 5 10 15
Time(s)

PID output
2

1.5

0.5
Current (A)

-0.5

-1 PID output
2
-1.5
1
-2
0 5 10 15
Current (A)

Time (s) 0

Fuzzy PID output -1

2

1.5 -2
0 2 4 6 8 10
1 Time (s)

Fuzzy-PID output
0.5
Current (A)

0
1
-0.5
Current (A)

0
-1

-1.5 -1

-2 -2
0 5 10 15 0 2 4 6 8 10
Time (s) Time (s)

Fig.10 System response with respect to sine Fig.13 System response with respect to step
reference input reference input
 With the step reference input, the
experimental result of system response and
steady state error are shown in figures 13 and
14. The response of self turning fuzzy PID
controller at the corner region (I and II) is better
than the conventional PID controller. At both
sides of limited working area (at A and B), the
response is difficult to reach because of the
saturation of the output current (Imax= 2A) and
the nonlinear characteristic of the system.
Fig.14 Steady state error respect to step
reference input
The experimental results show that the self-
tuning fuzzy PID controller is better than the
conventional PID controller. So this controller
can be used to improve the control performance
of nonlinear systems.
5. CONCLUSIONS
The novel LMA used to move the outer
damper of CSFD is investigated. The aim of
this paper is to check the working ability of a
new LMA under two controllers. The position
control by using PID and self-tuning Fuzzy PID
controller is considered. An apparatus of
position control of LMA is established. This
proves that the LMA can be used accurately to
control the moving of the outer damper of
CSFD.
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