Studies on the levitation height decay of the high temperature superconducting Maglev vehicle

The levitation height decay was found in the high temperature superconducting (HTS) Maglev test vehicle system during man-loading running. Experimental results show that the no-load levitating system would drift to a new equilibrium position by the external loaded history, but the new equilibrium position will almost not drift by the second-round same loaded history. A new method is proposed to improve the stability of the HTS Maglev vehicle, that is, a pre-load was applied to the HTS Maglev vehicle before running. The impulse responses are performed on the HTS Maglev vehicle before the pre-load and after the pre-load. The results show that the pre-load method is considerably effective to improvethe stiffness and damping coefficient of the HTS Maglev vehicle. Moreover, it helps to suppress the levitation height decay and enhance the stability of the HTS Maglev vehicle in practical operation. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.