Influence of Thickness on the Levitation Force of High-Tc Bulk over a Permanent Magnetic Guideway with Numerical Method

Levitation forces of a high temperature superconductor (HTS) bulk with a different thickness over a permanent magnet railway (PMR) is studied mathematically. Several cylindrical models of HTS bulk with a diameter of 30 mm and a different thickness over a PMR are researched by the magnetic field vector method (H-method). A 3D-modeling numerical method using finite element method (FEM) is used to simulate the electromagnetic behavior of the models. The thickness of the HTS bulk increases with 1 mm from 4 mm to 15 mm. The simulation results show that the thickness of the HTS bulk and the minigap between the bottom surface of the bulk and the top surface of the PMR have much influence on the levitation forces. With a certain applied magnetic field, there is a certain thickness value of the bulk, which means the levitation force will not increase obviously with the increase of the thickness while the thickness larges the value.