Design Optimization and Experimental Verification of an Electromagnetic Turnout for HTS Maglev Systems

The turnout is a crucial track junction device of the ground rail transportation system, including high-temperature superconducting (HTS) Maglev systems. The permanent magnetic guideway (PMG) employed in the HTS maglev system has a strong magnetic force between the rail segments, which causes moving difficulties and increases operation costs when switching the PMG. In this paper, a type of nonmechanical electromagnetic turnout for a “Y”-shaped Halbach-type PMG is proposed, and the structure of the electromagnet is optimized by finite element software. Simulation results show that the magnetic field of the optimized electromagnet could reach as strong as the replaced permanent magnets (PM), so it is feasible to design and fabricate a nonmechanical electromagnetic turnout. We fabricated a toy-sized “Y”-shaped electromagnetic turnout model and its counterpart with only PM to analyze and compare the magnetic field distribution. A maglev vehicle model with one HTS bulk inside is levitated and used to check the function of the designed turnout. Experiments show that the maglev model could achieve a stable direction switch above the electromagnetic turnout by changing the input current direction of the electromagnet. This work verifies the feasibility of electromagnetic turnouts for the Halbach-type PMG and provides valuable references for the future design of nonmechanical PMG turnouts.