Because of the effect of unbalance excitation and nonlinear magnetic force, the large vibration of the rotor supported by active magnetic bearing(AMB) will go beyond the radial gap of the bearing, even causing mechanical touch-rubbing when the system works at an operational speed closer to the critical speed. In order to investigate this problem, the linear model and nonlinear model of the single mass symmetric rigid rotor system supported by AMB are established respectively and the corresponding transfer functions of close-loop system are given. To pass through the numerical calculation by using MATLAB/Simulink, the effect of both the unbalance response and threshold speed of touch-rubbing of the system subjected to nonlinear magnetic forces and nonlinear output current of power amplifier are studied. Furthermore, threshold speed of touch-rubbing of the rotor-bearing system is defined and the results of numerical simulation are presented. Finally, based on above studies, two methods of increasing the touch-rubbing threshold speed are discussed.