Have you seen those extraordinary
"maglev" (magnetic levitation) trains that float on
air instead of rolling on wheels?
They're entirely electric but, instead
of using ordinary electric motors that spin around, they use
a kind of "unwrapped" motor called a linear motor that causes them to
move at high speed in a straight line. What are linear motors and how do they work?
Let's take a closer look!
Photo: Linear motors have many peaceful uses, but they can also be used to
accelerate projectiles in electromagnetic
railguns like this one. The muzzle velocity here
is a blistering 2520 meters per second (~9100 kph or 5640 mph)! Picture courtesy of US Navy and
Wikimedia Commons.
Linear motors are electric induction motors that produce motion in a straight
line rather than rotational motion.
In a traditional electric motor, the rotor (rotating part) spins inside
the stator (static part); in a linear motor, the stator is unwrapped and
laid out flat and the "rotor" moves past it in a straight line.
Linear motors often use superconducting magnets, which are cooled to
low temperatures to reduce power consumption.
The basic principle behind the linear motor was discovered in 1895,
but practical devices were not developed until 1947. During the 1950s,
British electrical engineer Eric Laithwaite (1921–1997) started to consider
whether linear motors could be used in electric weaving machines. Laithwaite's
research at Imperial College, London attracted international
recognition in the 1960s following a speech to the Royal Institution entitled
"Electrical Machines of the Future."
Photo: NASA tests a linear motor on a prototype
Maglev railroad, 1999. Tracks like this could be used to launch vehicles into space in future.
According to NASA: "A full-scale, operational track would be about 1.5-miles long and capable of accelerating a vehicle to 965 kph (600 mph) in 9.5 seconds." Picture courtesy of NASA
Marshall Space Flight Center (NASA-MSFC)
Linear motors are now used in all sorts of machines that require
linear (as opposed to rotational) motion, including overhead traveling cranes
and beltless conveyors for moving sheet metal.
They are probably best known as the source of motive power in the
latest generation of high-speed "maglev" (magnetic levitation) trains,
which promise safe travel at very
high speeds but are expensive and incompatible with existing railroads.
Most research on maglev trains has been carried out in Japan and
Germany.
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How linear motors work
Photo: An ordinary electric motor is all about rotation: the rotor (the coils in the center)
turns inside the stator (the outer magnetic case).
In a traditional DC electric motor, a central core of tightly wrapped
magnetic material (known as the rotor) spins at high speed between the
fixed poles of a magnet (known as the stator) when an electric current
is applied. In an AC induction motor, electromagnets positioned around the edge
of the motor are used to generate a rotating magnetic field in the central space between them.
This "induces" (produces) electric currents in a rotor, causing it to spin. In an electric car,
DC or AC motors like these are used to drive gears and wheels and convert
rotational motion into motion in a straight line.
Induction motors unwrapped
A linear motor is effectively an AC induction motor that has been
cut open and unwrapped. The "stator" is laid out in the form of a track
of flat coils made from aluminum or
copper and is known as the
"primary" of a linear motor. The "rotor" takes the form of a moving platform
known as the "secondary." When the current is switched on, the secondary
glides past the primary supported and propelled by a magnetic field.
Artwork: Top: Normal motor: The rotor spins inside the stator and the whole motor is fixed in place. Bottom: A linear motor is like a normal electric motor that has been unwrapped and laid in a straight line. Now the rotor moves past the stator as it turns.
That's the very simplified theory; this is what a linear motor looks like in a practice:
Artwork: The basic construction of a linear motor. The blue "rotor" is a flat sheet that shoots along the red "stator" (comprising the magnetic material and electromagnetic windings), floating or "levitating" on the air gap between them.
Artwork from US Patent#4,040,983: Electromagnetic levitation by Alan Attwood and Eric Laithwaite, September 20, 1977,
courtesy of US Patent and Trademark Office.
Linear motors have a number of advantages over ordinary motors. Most
obviously, there are no moving parts to go wrong. As the platform rides
above the track on a cushion of air, there is no loss of energy to
friction or vibration (but because the air-gap is greater in a linear motor,
more power is required and the efficiency is lower). The lack of an
intermediate gearbox to convert rotational motion into straight-line motion saves
energy. Finally, as both acceleration and braking are achieved through
electromagnetism, linear motors are much quieter than ordinary motors.
Superconducting magnets
The main problem with linear motors has been the cost and difficulty
of developing suitable electromagnets. Enormously powerful
electromagnets are required to levitate (lift) and move something as big as a train,
and these typically consume substantial amounts of electric power. Linear
motors often now use superconducting magnets to solve this problem.
If electromagnets are cooled to low temperatures using liquid helium
or nitrogen their electrical resistance disappears almost entirely,
which reduces power consumption considerably. This helpful effect, known as
superconductivity,
has been the subject of intense research since the mid 1980s and makes
large-scale linear motors that much more viable.
Photo: Linear motor warfare? Here's the US Navy's prototype railgun seen from the side.
It's been in development for over a decade and has reputedly cost $500 million so far. Photo by John F. Williams courtesy of
US Navy.
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Maglev—"A Closer Look"
Everyone knows that the "like" poles of two magnets repel one
another.
With a little ingenuity, it is possible to make one magnet levitate
(float)
above another one using this repulsive force and (crucially) some
additional
external support. The idea of using electromagnetic levitation to
support a moving vehicle was first proposed in 1912 by French engineer
Émile Bachelet,
but soon abandoned due to the enormous amount of electrical power required.
Photo: NASA tests a prototype Maglev railroad, 2001.
Picture courtesy of NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (NASA-MSFC).
In the 1960s, Eric Laithwaite's research into linear motors led to
renewed interest in the idea of a magnetically levitated or "maglev" train.
Around this time MIT scientist
Henry Kolm proposed a "magplane" running on rails that could carry 20,000 people at 320 kph (200 mph). This prompted a US
research program and led to a working prototype that was tested in
Colorado in 1967. However, the US program ran into political difficulties and
was shelved in 1975. The early 1990s brought an ambitious proposal to link
Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Fransisco with a maglev
railroad, but that project has since run into more political problems.
By contrast, maglev has been enthusiastically developed by Germany (using
a system called Transrapid) and Japan (with a rival technology known as
SCMaglev).
Transrapid
German engineers first produced a working prototype in 1971 and
developed the Transrapid system a year later. Strictly speaking, the Transrapid uses
magnetic attraction rather than the magnetic repulsion normally associated with maglev: the copper
magnets are fixed to a "skirt" that runs underneath, and is attracted up
toward, the steel track.
With considerable support from the German government, Transrapid has been progressively refined into a viable train that can reach speeds of up to 433 kph (271 mph).
Decades of investment and development finally paid off
in 2004, when Transrapid opened the world's first (and so far only)
high-speed system, the Shanghai Maglev Train (SMT), in China. Although it currently
operates on only a short section of track (a mere 31km or 19 miles long),
there have been several plans to extend it, though they have repeatedly
been shelved.
The Japanese have been even bolder and have long hoped to develop a high-speed
maglev train that can travel the 320 miles (515 km) from Tokyo to Osaka
in just one hour. Unlike the German Transrapid, the Japanese
system is genuine maglev: the train floats on the repulsive force between the
copper or aluminum coils in the track and a series of helium-cooled,
niobium-titanium superconducting magnets in the cars
(hence the name SCMaglev, where SC stands for "superconducting").
The Japanese prototype ML-500 train achieved a train speed record of 513 kph (321 mph) in 1979. A later
prototype known as the MLU002 was destroyed by fire in 1991; a firefighter
apparently found his ax pulled from his hand by one of the superconducting
magnets as he approached the burning train!
Despite this setback, development continued. By 2015, SCMaglev had been perfected to the point where it
clocked up a record-breaking speed of 603 kph (375 mph)—making it the fastest rail vehicle
in the world. Even though the Japanese government has declared SCMaglev
ready for commercial operation, unlike Transrapid, it's yet to be deployed on
any working railway anywhere in the world. Hopefully, that will change with the opening of the Chuo Shinkansen
SCMaglev rail line between Tokyo and Nagoya (and eventually Osaka), currently under construction and
expected to begin operation in 2027.
Future prospects
Although maglev technology continues to generate a great deal of
interest around the world, it is still more expensive mile-for-mile than
building a traditional high-speed railroad. For this reason (and also because it's
completely incompatible with existing railroads), it's unlikely to
be widely used for some years. Tech writers and children's science
books have been flagging up maglev as a promising technology of the future since
at least the 1970s; on past form at least, it's perfectly possible
that maglev will always be just over the horizon—the train that
never actually arrives. Even though the Japanese are now finally
constructing a major maglev line, it remains to be seen whether
they can persuade other countries to buy into the technology.
Alternative designs
Trains powered by linear motors have been touted as a promising technology
for decades. Not all of them work using the "maglev" principle, however.
Here's a system patented in the 1960s by Millard Smith
and Marion Roberts, which they claimed "is capable of traveling at speeds
in excess of 100 miles per hour silently and with minimal vibration in a
manner superior to any commercial rail vehicle now operating."
Artwork: Illustration from US Patent#3,233,559: Transportation means by Marion L. Roberts and Millard F. Smith, courtesy of US Patent
and Trademark Office, with colors added for clarity
These two diagrams show how it works.
On the left: This version of their design uses two relatively conventional rails (red) with a third, magnetic power rail (green) added between them. The diagram on the right illustrates how it works: the train (blue, 10) rides on shoes (orange, 13), held
a few millimeters (a fraction of an inch) above the outer rails of the track (red, 12) by a cushion
of compressed air (15). The third rail is a linear motor using wire-wound electromagnets (21) mounted
to the underside of the train to propel it past the static rail (11), which is made from copper or aluminum.
Although this system uses a linear motor, it's not actually a maglev because the train isn't levitated by magnetism.
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Don't want to read our articles? Try listening instead
This Maglev Heart Could Keep Cardiac Patients Alive by Nicholas Greatrex, Matthias Kleinheyer, Frank Nestler and Daniel Timms. IEEE Spectrum, August 22, 2019. Could maglev technology offer a long-term replacement for faulty human hearts?
Michigan Could Be Home To Maglev Superhighway by Keith Barry. Wired, March 19, 2009. The ambitious Interstate Traveler Hydrogen Super Highway would put cars on overhead, solar-powered maglev railroads
The Magnetic Attraction of Trains, BBC News, 9 November 1999. A basic overview of maglev, including a brief look at the ill-fated Birmingham Airport maglev and the role of Eric Laithwaite.
Linear Laithwaite, New Scientist, 20 September 1973. An early interview with Eric Laithwaite, in which the engineer explains his fascination with linear motors
US Patent#3,233,559: Transportation means by Marion L. Roberts and Millard F. Smith, February 8, 1966. An early proposal for a railroad driven by linear motors and supported by a cushion of air.
US Patent#6,044,770: Integrated high speed MAGLEV system by Kent R. Davey, Tony J. Morris. Park Square Technology, Ltd. April 4, 2000. Beginning with a discussion of various earlier maglev ideas, this patent goes on to describe a cutting-edge maglev railroad system in some detail.
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