Lateral Drift of the HTS Maglev Vehicle Running on a Ring Test Line under Low Pressure Environment

Abstract With the development in recent years, high temperature superconducting (HTS) Maglev with self-stabilization characteristic has been regarded as a good candidate for evacuated tube transport (ETT). To ensure the safety and stability of the HTS Maglev vehicle running in a low pressure environment, results measured in the latest research of an HTS Maglev-ETT Test System were used to study the lateral drift (LD) of the Maglev vehicle under different low pressures. The field cooling heights (FCHs) of 20 mm, 30 mm, and 40 mm were studied under each pressure condition. The experimental results show that the low pressure environment and an appropriately low FCH condition are both beneficial to suppress the LD phenomenon. The low pressure environment will reduce the LD by lowering the temperature of the liquid nitrogen and increasing the pinning potential energy U0 of HTS bulk. The basic data of the pressure effects on the HTS Maglev system at different FCHs proves the low-pressure environment can improve the operating characteristics and further demonstrates the superiority of the HTS Maglev-ETT system.