Effect of a magnetic field from the horizontal direction on a magnetically levitated steel plate (fundamental considerations on the shape analysis of ultrathin steel plate)

Thin steel plates are widely used in various industrial products. But there are problems where deterioration of surface quality and metal plating occurred by transporting. As a solution to these problems, a noncontact transport of steel plates using electromagnetic force has been proposed. However, there is a risk that side slipping or the dropping of the plate may occur owing to inertial force because the levitation control system does not provide a restraining for the direction of travel. Therefore we have proposed the addition of electromagnetic actuators to control the horizontal motion of levitated steel plate. In this study, we calculated the shape of steel plate with horizontal attractive force using Finite Difference Method (FDM). It was confirmed that the vertical displacement of the steel plate can be effectively suppressed by using magnetic field in the horizontal direction by performed simulation.