Experimental study on a test stand for magnetically levitated vehicle dynamics evaluation

Fundamental experiments on a test stand to examine the characteristics of magnetically levitated (maglev) vehicle dynamics were conducted. In the prototype test stand, an actual bogie with weights, which correspond to a car body, is magnetically suspended and vibrated by surrounding magnetic exciting coils. This paper proposes a bench test system and a magnetic vibration method which can suspend the bogie and simulate irregular external forces originated by four types of alignment irregularities of ground coils, using a concept of equivalent irregularities. The results of the slowly swept sine excitation experiments confirmed that the bogie in the test stand is magnetically suspended in the same way as the actual bogie running at a high speed. Furthermore, vertical accelerations of the bogie and weights vibrated in the proposed way were compared with those of the moving vehicles to find similarities in a range of frequencies sensitive to ride quality. The experiments technically enhanced the prospect of the test stand to analyze the characteristics of maglev vehicle dynamics for the future. © 2013 The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers.