96 Ë 4 Superconducting magnetic levitation
Fig. 4.5:Superconducting magnet of the EDS Maglev train in Japan [1].
train will be more convenient than flying because of the travel time to get to the
airports. The first part of the Maglev project is planned to be operational in 2027,
linking Tokyo with Nagoya, a city halfway between Tokyo and Osaka. The full track
between Tokyo and Osaka would be finalized in 2045. Estimated construction cost
would be roughly 9 trillion JPY and fully financed by JR Central.
4.4 HTS Maglev
BSCCO was the first-found HTS material to be used for making practical superconduc-
ting wires. An on-board magnet coil wound by HTS tapes instead of Nb–Ti wires, is
very promising. BSCCO HTS magnets have been in development for superconducting
Maglev trains since 1999. Because HTS BSCCO wires exhibit poor pinning performance
at intermediate temperatures, they cannot be used for levitation even with liquid
nitrogen cooling (see Section 2.3). The main advantages of 2G HTS wires are high
critical current density, large-scale production, lower manufacturing cost, better
mechanical properties, and superior performance under high magnetic fields. The 2G
HTS REBCO wires are very attractive for various Maglev applications.
The levitation of a NdFeB PM of volume 0.7 cm^3 above a disk of YBCO bulk super-
conductor 2.5 cm diameter, 0.6 cm thickness bathed in liquid nitrogen was observed
by Hellman et al. [9] Very stable suspension of YBCO samples in a magnetic field below