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| The First Man-Loading HTS Maglev Test Vehicle- ¡°Century¡± in the World was Invented by ASCLab Successfully on Dec 31st, 2000 |
Completely different from the Shanghai Maglev £¨no superconductivity£©imported from Germany and the LTS maglev in Japan, the HTS maglev vehicle is self-stable, doesn¡¯t need controlment for levitations and guidance, and has no on-broad power supply. The system is also environmentally friendly with no chemical and acoustic pollution, energy efficient with less than one twelfth of energy consumption of an airplane and very fast with speed reaching several thousands kilometers per hour.
With grants from ¡°National 863 Project¡± and the Ministry of Railways, the ¡° HTS maglev test vehicle¡± project (NO. 863-CD080000) was started in 1997. Based on many years of research on electromagnetic properties of bulk HTS materials, ASCLab developed SCML-01 HTS Maglev Measurement System. A lot of original experimental data of the levitation properties of YBaCuO bulk over the permanent magnet guideway were collected using SCML-01. The first man-loading HTS maglev test vehicle in the world ¡°Century¡± was invented by ASCLab successfully at 2:26 PM on Dec. 31st .2000 in SWJTU, China. |
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- On Dec.31st, 2000, the first time to fill liquid nitrogen;
- Measured the net levitation height over 20mm while taking 5 persons£»
- Rresearcher made an ?first attempt to test guidance force;
- Measurement of the guidance force of the whole vehicle.
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The levitation force (figure above) and the guidance force (figure below) of ¡°Century¡±, where FCH is the field-cooling height |
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All the onboard superconductors in the first man-loading HTS maglev test vehicle are domestically made (by Beijing General Research Institute for Nonferrous Metals and Northwest Research Institute for Nonferrous Metals in China) melt-textured YBaCuO bulks, which are fixed in the rectangle-shaped vessels with very thin soleplates. The total load weight is about 635 kg at net levitation height of 20mm. Moreover the net levitation height is more than 20mm with five people on the test vehicle. The vehicle runs stably over the 15 meter long NdFeB permanent magnet guideway. The vehicle has been extremely reliable ever since it was built five years ago. Since then more than 40,000 persons have rided ¡°Century¡±. The total mileage is about 400 kilometers.
On Feb.11th. 2001, the comments from National Committee of Experts in Superconductivity of ¡°863 project¡± were ¡°By hard work of the group, China made an important breakthrough of basic research of HTS maglev application and other related technology. Now we can play a leading role in this field in the world. The original work also lays a foundation to apply the HTS maglev technology in the transportation or other fields, and guides to a long-term development in the subject¡±. There are some comments of famous experts, for example, ¡°I am amazed with the maglev vehicle you made.¡± from Dr. Murakami, and ¡°Your achievement with a maglev vehicle is truly impressive.¡± from Dr. John Hull. |
¡°Century¡± was awarded Top 10 Advancements of Science Technology of Chinese Colleges in 2001, and the comment was ¡°it possesses tremendous developing opportunity and commercial potential¡±.
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¡°Century¡± was the hit in the 15th anniversary exhibition of National High Technology Research and Development Program of China in Beijing, 2001. Five years later the vehicle was the main attraction in the 1st Science and Technology Festival of Chengdu in 2005. ¡°Century¡± makes riders feel like they are not riding on a railway. Many TV and broadcasting stations all over the world have covered ¡°Century¡± and made documentary programs for the man-loading HTS Maglev Test Vehicle. |
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On Nov. 5th, 2003, fourteen Chinese Academy of Sciences members cosigned a letter to the National Council to petition for higher priority on further research and development in the HTS maglev train technology and related domestic high-technology industry.
The International Workshop on HTS Maglev (ISMAGLEV¡¯ 2002) was held on Jun. 25-27, on Jun. 25th~27th 2002 in ASCLab of Southwest Jiaotong Univ., Chengdu, China. Researchers from China, Germany, Japan, and Brazil etc. and delegates of companies like Siemens, ThyssenKrupp, AMAC, as well as Beijing Inna Co., Ltd. attended. The theme is the HTS maglev technology and its application. The Picture above is the group photo of Prof. Zhou Benkuan, the president of Southwest Jiaotong Univ., with port meeting attendants. |
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News |
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 Prof. Yukikazu Iwasa visited our lab and was certified as our university's visiting professor
All our faculty receive patriotism education in Museum of science and technology of CAEP
Prof. Manfred Thumm visited our lab
A delegation of Franch Ecole Centrale visited ASCLab
Lars kuehn visited
Prof. Y. Iwasa visited
SCML-3 is
ready |
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Links |
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Southwest
Jiaotong
University
SWJTU Library
Superconductivity R&D Center, Tsinghua University
 Papers on line |
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Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu, Sichuan, 610031, China
TEL: 86-28-87601794 |
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