Superconducting Excitation System of a Small Scale Linear Synchronous Motor

A four pole superconducting excitation system that was part of a linear synchronous motor (LSM) system, was fabricated and its thrust and normal forces studied experimentally. Four cases were investigated, air-cored, with a ferromagnetic (FM) back plate, an FM core, and with both an FM back plate and core. With a total of only 15 m of YBCO coated conductor in the form of four coils as the excitation system, thrust output of up to 95 N while operating at 77 K with a magnetic gap of 10 mm was obtained in one particular case. The results of the studied superconducting LSM system help better understand the feasibility of their applications to drive systems for Maglev trains.