Non-contact Magnetic Suspension for Edge of Flexible Steel Plate: Experimental Consideration on Stable Levitation

Flexible steel plates are widely used in various industrial fields, such as car bodies and reinforcement materials for housing. Currently, rollers are mainly used for contact conveyance in plants where flexible steel plates are used, but this conveyance method causes deterioration of the quality of the steel plate surface due to contact between the plate and the rollers. To solve this problem, a non-contact gripping and transfer method has been proposed that uses the attractive force of electromagnets. We have conducted experiments using a magnetic levitation method in which electromagnets are placed only at the long edges of flexible steel plates to study the steady current levitating through the electromagnets and the levitation characteristics when the controller is changed.