78 Ë 3 Magnetic levitation
Fig. 3.7:Maglev test vehicle [92] of the Southwest Jiaotong University in China.
The Beijing Enterprises Holdings Limited together with the National University of
Defense Technology (NUDT) built a CMS-03 test vehicle and a 204-m-long test line
in 2001 in Changsha [92–94]. Up to now, the vehicle has run over 7000 km with over
20,000-test runs and 40,000 start and stop operations. Its safety and reliability have
been proved. The vehicle’s main parameters are length of 15.5 m, width of 3 m, height
of 3.83 m, empty weight of 21 t, nominal load capacity of 9 t, a maximum speed of
150 km/h, an operational acceleration of 1.1 m/s^2 , a minimum road radius of 75 m, and
a maximum climbing grade of 7%. The construction of the first test line in Beijing of
the medium- to low-speed Maglev (Fig. 3.8) was started on February 28, 2011.
On November 4, 1999, the Ministry of Science and Technology and Transrapid
International Inc. signed an agreement to conduct a cooperative pre-feasibility study
for construction of a test-operation line in China [93]. On June 30, 2000, an agreement
of cooperative feasibility study demonstration and line operation for a Shanghai
Maglev was signed. The first Maglev vehicle (Fig. 3.9), composed of three sections,
accomplished its trial run on a single track on December 31, 2002. Following a
12-month system commissioning, the Shanghai Maglev line was officially put into
trial commercial service on May 1, 2004, running 9 hours per day in the initial period
Fig. 3.8:Maglev test vehicle of the National University of Defense Technology in China [93].