Vertical–Lateral Coupling Force Relation of the High-Temperature Superconducting Magnetic Levitation System

A high-temperature superconducting (HTS) magnetic levitation (maglev), based on YBaCuO bulk superconductors and permanent magnet guideways, shows the potential to be applied in the future rail transportation. The maglev forces (levitation and guidance force) of the HTS maglev system, which bond the vehicle and the guideway, are the key factors of its dynamics studies. In practical operation, the HTS maglev vehicle moves in both the vertical and lateral directions, but the previous force models are in single degree of freedom. In this article, an experiment was designed to study the vertical-lateral coupled effect of the levitation and guidance force. A 2-D coupling model was proposed to fit the experimental data. Furthermore, the motion stability and the dynamical characteristics of the HTS maglev system in 2-D space were studied. The simulation results show that the vertical-lateral coupling effect in maglev forces cannot be neglected, and one direction motion can affect the motion in the other direction. It also shows that the proposed force model is suitable for HTS maglev dynamics' calculations.