MAGNEPLANE SYSTEM

The magneplane is not a railroad in which magnet pads simply replace wheels, but a radically new transportation system conceived to make full use of the advantages offered by electrodynamic levitation. Lightweight cylindrical vehicles travel 25 cm above a lightweight aluminum trough, supported and guided by superconducting magnets extending over most of their underside. They are propelled by a synchronously traveling magnetic field generated by conductors in the guideway. Information transmitted from the vehicle to wayside power control units maintains synchronism, actively damps oscillations of the vehicle, and maintains positive position control of all vehicles in the system. The results of tests of a 1/25 scale-model system using both samarium-cobalt and superconducting magnet vehicles with on-board control telemetering systems, operating on a 116 m long actively synchronized guideway are presented.

• Corporate Authors:

  IPC Science and Technology Press Limited

  IPC House, 32 High Street
  Guildford, Surrey  England 
• Authors:
  • Kolm, H H
  • Thornton, R D
  • Iwasa, Y
  • Brown, W S
• Publication Date: 1975-7

Media Info

• Pagination: p. 377-384
• Serial:
  • Cryogenics
  • Volume: 15
  • Issue Number: 7
  • Publisher: Butterworths and Company Publishers, Limited

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Automated guideway transit; Intelligent transportation systems; Linear motors; Magnetic levitation; Superconductivity; Synchronous motors
• Old TRIS Terms: Advanced systems; Automated guideway systems
• Subject Areas: Operations and Traffic Management; Public Transportation; Railroads;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00128906
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: Engineering Index
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Feb 4 1976 12:00AM