Dynamic Responses of HTS Maglev System Under Track Random Irregularity

High-temperature superconducting (HTS) magnetic levitation (maglev), with the advantages of low-energy consumption, simple mechanical structure and environment-friendly, has the potential to become a high-speed transportation. In rail track lines, the track random irregularity is ineluctable due to the defects of permanent magnets in production and construction, which will further affect the operation stationarity. In practical operation, the vibration is usually vertical-lateral coupled because of the lateral excitations from the track irregularity and the guideway deformation. In this paper, an HTS maglev vehicle-bridge coupled model considering vertical-lateral coupling effect is built based on the Universal Mechanism (UM) software. To study the dynamical response of the maglev system, a track irregularity spectrum was built based on our group's existing guideway. Different speeds and spans were adopted in this model. The Sperling index is used to evaluate the system stationarity performance under different working conditions. The results show that HTS maglev can run very safely and smoothly on existing guideway and more flexible bridges. This study suggests the limitation of the running speed and the designs of bridges in HTS maglev under track random irregularity, as well as provides references for the engineering.