Bearingless centrifugal pump systems are employed in the semiconductor, pharmaceutical and medical industries due to their facility for pumping high purity fluids without particle contamination. Two types of forces have to be generated by the stator u...
Bearingless centrifugal pump systems are employed in the semiconductor, pharmaceutical and medical industries due to their facility for pumping high purity fluids without particle contamination. Two types of forces have to be generated by the stator units, namely bearing forces for achieving magnetic levitation, and drive forces for producing the needed pump torque. The generation of these forces requires bearing and drive windings, which can be realized as separate bearing and drive coils or as identical, combined coils on the stator claws. In this paper, a detailed comparison between these two winding concepts is undertaken, whereby the copper losses, the power electronics losses, and the achievable pump output pressure are evaluated for both concepts. For each criterion a ratio of improvement is calculated analytically which allows evaluation of the performance of the two winding concepts for any given pump operating point and design. Finally, also practical features such as control complexity, cabling effort and manufacturability are discussed and measurements on prototype systems are carried out to validate the considerations.