Electrodynamic Maglev coil design and analysis

Electrodynamic Maglev systems are distinguished from electromagnetic systems in that the currents yielding lift and guidance forces are induced by the movement of the vehicle. Above a threshold speed, such a system is inherently stable, and has the additional benefit of having greater flexibility to system construction tolerances in that the magnet vertical position can change by as much as 5 cm. A stacked magnet design is considered which couples into a set of interleave coils which are interconnected in such a way as to yield both lift and guidance forces. A mutual coupling analysis is embraced wherein the mutual inductance between the permanent magnets on board the vehicle and the coils are computed using closed form analytical expressions for filaments. The derivatives of these expressions are then averaged to compute both the induced current and the forces on the coils as a function of the system geometry and speed. A full transient analysis must be performed to accurately account for entry and exit effects. The results are compared to those experimentally measured on a test track and extrapolations are offered to suggest future design considerations.