A Superconducting Levitation Bearing for a Cryogenic Rotor: Lift Capacity, Stiffness and Rotational Loss Budget

This paper presents a computed design for a levitation bearing intended for superconducting bearings, with its performance, resource budgets and margins derived from stated assumptions rather than asserted. The headline results are: total lift capacity of the two bearing rings of 344 N; ratio of lift capacity to the rotor weight of 5.85 dimensionless; linearised axial stiffness about the field-cooled position of 229 kN per m; total rotational loss at 6000 rpm of 1.25 W; approximate wall-plug power to remove the rotational loss at 77 K of 36.2 W. Each figure was produced by the deposited computation from the inputs listed in the Methods, and the sensitivity of the conclusions to those inputs is examined in the Discussion. The design is a paper study: it is labelled, on its face and in this abstract, SIMULATED, NOT MEASURED, and no quantity reported here is a measurement of built hardware.