Response of a maglev vehicle moving on a two-span flexible guideway

Abstract

This paper is intended to present a preliminary framework for dynamic interaction analysis of a maglev (magnetically levitated) vehicle running on a two-span guideway using a comprehensive iterative approach. A maglev vehicle with electrodynamic suspension (EDS) system is simplified as a two degrees-of-freedom (2-DOF) maglev oscillator tuned by a PID (Proportional- Integral-Derivative) controller. The guideway is modeled as a two-span continuous beam with uniform section. Two sets of equations of motion are written, with the first set for the guideway and the second set for the maglev oscillator traveling on the guideway through a motion-dependent magnetic force. To achieve the stable levitation gap for a maglev vehicle moving on a flexible guideway, Ziegler-Nicholas (Z-N) tuning rules are used to determine the tuning parameters of the PID controller. Numerical simulations demonstrate that the levitation gap affects the dynamic response of the maglev vehicle while little influence on the guideway response since the inertial force of the moving maglev vehicle is much lower than its static load.