Design And Measurement Of A Small Scale High Temperature Superconducting Linear Synchronous Motor Prototype

A century has passed since the discovery of superconductivity and the birth of the linear motor with the superconducting linear motor having been developed starting from the mid-20th century to nowadays. After the discovery of the YBCO high temperature superconductor in 1987, superconducting applications have been researched and developed more and more extensive. Various countries have studied and constructed high temperature superconducting (HTS) linear motors beginning from 1999 which include Japan, Germany, United States, Portugal, and Korea. This manuscript studies the design, fabrication and experimentation of a novel HTS linear synchronous motor targeted mainly towards the use for maglev levitation drive systems and making use of YBCO coated conductor wire which distinguishes our results since others have only used BSSCO multi-filamentary composite wire. In the end, a prototype was fabricated and studied experimentally and analytically compared to theory.The structure of the prototype consisted of one or multiple HTS racetrack coils positioned adjacent to each other with opposite subsequent magnetic poles as the excitation system. The armature was made of copper wire windings that generated a traveling wave magnetic field when alternating current was conducted. This structure was chosen to avoid use of alternating current in the superconducting coils to avoid parasitic AC losses.A testing platform for superconducting linear synchronous motors (SLSM) was designed and constructed in order to test the performance of the LSM prototype in the static mode detailed in chapter 2. The testing platform allowed for the investigation of the forces experienced by the excitation system of the LSM when subject to a changing magnetic field generated by the stator. The forward and normal forces were measured and analyzed. Other important parameters that affect the performance of the LSM were also experimentally measured and discussed in the thesis including:the critical current, n-value, induction, and field constant of all of the superconducting coils.Apart from testing all of the abovementioned parameters for individual superconducting coils, the same experiments were also performed on an array of two and four coils connected in series with opposite adjacent polarity. Ferromagnetic materials were also added to the coils such as silicon steel cores, dysprosium cores and iron back plates to study their effects on the enhancement of thrust and normal forces of the LSM. The same experimental procedures were also conducted on the system at different magnetic gaps.The results of all the obtained experiments are discussed and analyzed such as comparison of the thrust to normal force ratios for each case, structure optimization for increased performance and suggestions toward the further development of larger scale SLSM systems. The work within is a contribution toward the further development of higher thrust density and power density SLSM systems with the use of HTS components.