Dynamic Characteristics of a Linear Superconducting Magnetic Bearing Under Pulsed and Harmonic Excitations

The linear superconducting magnetic bearing (SMB) discussed in this article consists of a high-temperature superconducting bulk of YBaCuO and a permanent magnet rail to provide the excitation magnetic field. The dynamics of SMB is vital to engineering applications; however, previous experimental and theoretical explorations on dynamic behaviors of linear SMB only provide qualitative analysis, because of limited experimental conditions and approximated analytical models. Furthermore, the pulsed and harmonic excitations have not been taken into account in the published numerical works on the dynamics of linear SMB. In this article, a two-dimensional (2-D) model of the linear SMB was introduced and coupled with the 2-D motion second-order equations with respect to time, to simulate the dynamic behaviors in the vertical and lateral directions. Under the external excitations, the displacements in time and frequency domains, phase trajectories, and motion trajectories are presented in the vertical and lateral directions to discuss the effects of pulsed and harmonic forces on the dynamic characteristics of linear SMB. It turns out that the 2-D model with ease of implementation can provide a utile tool for analyzing the dynamics of linear SMB, and the numerical results, inaccessible through simplified analytical models, provide the quantitative dynamic characteristics and principles for applications of linear SMB.