INVESTIGATION IN TRANSPORTATION WITH AND WITHOUT

investigation in transportation with and without wheels

Investigation in transportation with and without wheels

The wheel is without doubt one of man's most impressive early inventions. The important difference between a wheeled cart and its predecessor, a sledge, lies in the arrangement and quality of the bearing surfaces. The Concise Oxford English Dictionary defines a bearing as: 'a carrier or support for moving parts of any machine; any part of the machine that bears the friction'. Even a crude wheeled cart has relatively smooth and small bearing surfaces whereas a sledge has much larger bearings, one of which (the ground) can be quite rough. The linear motion bearing between the sledge and the ground, was thus transformed through the use of wheels, to a rotary bearing between two controlled surfaces. (Geoferry Franks 2007 Pp. 45-49.)

For the majority of applications the advantages of the mechanical transformation from linear to rotary bearings have stood the test of time well. However, by harnessing magnetic forces to support a moving body, a bearing with no physical contact between its surfaces is possible. The lack of physical contact offers superior performance over mechanical bearings in terms of friction and wear. For certain wheel-on-rail transport applications, the benefits can be even greater, since magnetic linear bearings can be used to replace both the wheel and its rotary bearing. For such applications, the wheel may in future become as unusual as a horse-drawn carriage is today. The Magnetmobil was the first full-scale system capable of carrying passengers. It used a pair of orthogonally orientated electromagnets at each corner to provide independent lift and lateral suspension.

Propulsion was provided by a double sided, short stator linear induction motor mounted on the vehicle, with an aluminium reaction rail on the guideway. The Transrapid-0210 vehicle, used two in-line electromagnets at each corner which were slightly offset either side of the rail. Both electromagnets contributed lift force, but a lateral force component was also generated by adjusting the relative drive levels between the electromagnet pair. The propulsion configuration was the same as the Magnetmobil except for the use of a single-sided linear induction motor. The Romag system11 took a different approach, using one linear induction motor at each corner to provide combined lift and propulsion, but there was no active control of lateral motion.

The new development of an electromagnetic actuation presented in this report is a pioneering innovation for rail and road traffic, and provides a solution to the global challenge caused by traffic problems worldwide. A pneumatically driven capsule pipeline system has been in commercial use in Japan since 1983 the new development presented here, consisting of an electromagnetic actuation and a modified railway, renders possible three to five-fold increase in traffic efficiency. This increase in efficiency can only be achieved in rail traffic, because higher speeds can be reached on rail. An electronic traffic flow control and the electromagnetic actuation enable optimum speed adjustment which leads to an increase in capacity on ...