Operational Tests of a Full Scale Superconducting MagLevehicle Unit

Abstract This work presents new results of the Brazilian transportation vehicle MagLev-Cobra. This technology proposes a magnetically levitated vehicle composed of small units of 1.5 m length, allowing curves with minimal radius of 50 m, ramps of 10% and velocities up to 70km/h. When these short units are connected, the vehicle resembles a snake or rsquo;cobra’ in Portuguese. Since there is no contact between the vehicle and the magnetic rail, the noise level is low. Also, the load is distributed along the vehicle and not concentrated on single points of contact as in a conventional wheel and rail transportation system, which results in lower mechanical moment and lighter civil engineering constructions. These factors make MagLev-Cobra ideal to run on elevated structures inside cities. The estimated construction costs are 1/3 of that necessary for subways. The levitation technology is based on the flux pinning property of Y-Ba-Cu-O blocks and the magnetic field of Nd-Fe-B magnets. The present paper gives some construction details and describes new measurements of a full scale prototype. The rail of permanent magnets was reached based on optimization algorithms and several quasi-static measurements are reported here.