Magnetic Levitation - Principle Of Operation, Maglev Vehicles, Superconducting Magnets, Disadvantages Of Maglev Vehicles, Prospects For Maglev Vehicles

Magnetic Levitation - Principle Of Operation

Imagine that two bar magnets are suspended one above the other with like poles (two north poles or two south poles) directly above and below each other. Any effort to bring these two magnets into contact with each other will have to overcome the force of repulsion that exists between two like magnetic poles. The strength of that force of repulsion depends, among other things, on the strength of th…

Magnetic Levitation - Maglev Vehicles

Credit for foreseeing the applications of magnetic levitation in the construction of vehicles is usually given to rocket pioneer Robert Goddard. In 1907, Goddard published a story in which he described a vehicle that traveled by means of the principle of magnetic levitation. The first working model of such a vehicle was constructed in 1912 by the French engineer Emile Bachelet. Bachelet's v…

Magnetic Levitation - Superconducting Magnets

For many years, scientists have been aware of at least one obvious way of dealing with these practical problems—superconducting magnets. Superconductivity is the tendency of a conducting material (such as copper) to carry an electrical current with virtually no resistance. Although superconductivity had been discovered as early as 1911, its application to real-life inventions had always bee…

Magnetic Levitation - Disadvantages Of Maglev Vehicles

Magnetic Levitation - Prospects For Maglev Vehicles

The new age of MAGLEV technology can be traced to the early 1960s. During that period, many observers saw MAGLEV vehicles as a way of solving a number of problems confronting the United States and other developed nations. For example, they offered an apparently efficient way of moving large numbers of people quickly and efficiently through and around urban areas. They could be powered with almost …