Design and Analysis of a Small-Scale Linear Propulsion System for Maglev Applications (1)—The Overall Design Process

Magnetic levitation vehicle (maglev) is a promising candidate for high-speed transportation with features like low pollution and power loss. And the maglev performances are further enhanced by introducing the high-temperature superconducting (HTS) technology to the maglev. In this paper, a 7.55-kW small-scale HTS linear synchronous motor (LSM) is designed as a preparatory research of the propulsion system for the future high-speed maglev. Different from those in a permanent magnet (PM) LSM, the primary and secondary parts are especially designed for an HTS LSM according to the design flow. Performances are analyzed including the comparison between the HTS LSM and the PM LSM. Under the same electromagnetic gap of 10 mm, the maximum propulsive force of the HTS LSM is 1510 N, which is ∼50% larger than that of the PM LSM though the commercial PMs with the strongest remnant field of 1.45 T (N52) are selected and arranged in a Halbach array. And the field waveform of HTS secondary is also more sinusoidal with lower total harmonic distortion. Overall, the HTS LSM performs better than the PM LSM, and the design results can provide possible references for the future high-speed maglev.