Study on the Maglev vehicle–guideway coupling vibration system

Abstract

An innovative control approach for a Maglev system, including a new structure of the Maglev line and a novel levitation control method, is proposed in order to solve the problem of vehicle–guideway coupling vibration. Compared with a traditional Maglev line, the magnetic tracks in the new line are divided into smaller pieces to allow decoupling of the levitation magnets from the flexible supporting beams (steel or concrete beams). The vibration states of the magnetic tracks are introduced into the control system by the state observer, and a controller is designed using the full state feedback method. The effects of various parameters on the stability of the system are investigated. Also, a hardware-in-loop test rig is built to verify the feasibility of the scheme. The following conclusions are drawn based on the obtained results: in the new system, the magnet is dual-decoupled from the carbody and the supporting beam; the relative position between the magnet and the supporting beam exerts a negligible effect on the responses of the track and magnet, this makes it feasible to obtain all the vibration states of the track and the magnet using a state observer; an increase in the mass of the track is conducive to the stability of the system and a low pad stiffness value produces a faster decay ratio of the vibration of the supporting beam; the system’s stability margin is improved as the damping ratio of the supporting beam increases.