Bio-Inspired Secondary Levitation Structure Design for High-Temperature Superconducting Maglev Train

High-temperature superconducting (HTS) maglev trains are new type of transportation tools in the future. However, due to shortcomings such as track irregularity and uncontrollable electromagnetic forces, the vibration problem of HTS maglev trains has always been a challenge for commercial application. This paper focuses on the vibration reduction requirements of maglev trains and designs a new type of bio-inspired X-shaped levitation structure to improve comfort. First, the bio-inspired levitation asymmetric structure is designed and a mathematical model is provided. By comparing the dynamic response with traditional levitation and symmetric X-shaped levitation, the superiority of the proposed asymmetric levitation structure in vibration reduction performance is demonstrated. Then, a dynamic model of the HTS maglev train was established, and simulation was conducted using both traditional secondary levitation structure and the proposed bio-inspired secondary levitation structure designed under the same track irregularity excitation. The simulation results show that the proposed bio-inspired asymmetric secondary levitation structure has more advantages in vibration reduction performance.