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New Progress in the Study of China’s “Super High-Speed Rail”
Updated:2018.03.19

  On March 12th, our reporter learned from the national key laboratory of Traction Power of Southwest JiaotongUniversity that the world’s fastest vacuum HTS magnetic levitation straight test line is being built in Chengdu. It will be completed by the end of this year and put into engineering testing.

  In the laboratory, the reporter saw engineers were installing and debugging equipment in a special pipe of 4.2 meters in diameter and 140 meters long, which had been tested for vacuum tightness.

  Researchers from this laboratory said the new line would be tested in a low-pressure environment. Underside of the test car was specially made high-temperature superconducting materials. Relying on the low temperature formed by liquid nitrogen, superconducting and magnetic levitation effects can be achieved with a levitation height of 10 millimeter, a weight bearing of 200 kilograms and a maximum test speed of 400 kilometers per hour, compared with 355 kilometers per hour for a similar type of “super high-speed railway” made by Elon Musk, the American “enthusiast of technology”.

  It is learned that linear motor ejection will be adopted in the device to increase the train model’s speed to 140 meters per hour within a distance of 400 kilometers, and a series of tests including train aerodynamics, pipe-magnetic rail-car body coupling vibration as well as running smoothness and stability will be completed to lay a foundation for the next manned car test.

  The lab has previously demonstrated that the “maglev plus vacuum” method creates a low-resistivity operating environment that can effectively speed up future high-speed rail. “This straight test line will greatly increase the test speed, and further verify the feasibility of ‘super high-speed railway’ in quasi-vacuum and high-speed environment,” said the researcher.

  The laboratory is working with CRV to develop a 1: 1 prototype with a capacity of 100 people. The practical prototype vehicle will have a levitation capacity of 2 tons / m and a levitation height of 15 mm, which can meet the operational load requirements of the existing rail transit.

  The researcher also pointed out that vacuum technology is mature now and HTS technology also has formative solutions. With their combination, the speed of “super high-speed railway” is expected to exceed 1,000 kilometers per hour in the future.

  But it’s not going to happen overnight, he explained, and what’s going on is a validation trial. There’s still a long way to go before it’s finally commercialized.Pilot scale test is needed before the project is put into production. As an emerging frontier field, it requires confidence in research and support from all sides. “What we lack the most is funding and social support. A one-kilometer test line needs about 200 million yuan,” he said.

  At present, the Chinese Academy of Engineering, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the State Railway Administration and the State Railway Corporation are paying great attention to the technology of “super high-speed railway”.

 
 
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