Linear Electric Machines, Drives, and MAGLEVs Handbook

22 Passive Guideway MAGLEVs

22.1 Introduction

Passive guideway MAGLEVs are MAGLEV vehicles and industrial platforms whose active (electrically supplied) parts are all on board of the mover, and thus full power transfer to the vehicle is required. In counterbalance for a more costly vehicle, the guideway is passive and made of aluminum sheets and back solid iron slabs (for linear induction motors (LIM) propulsion) or of variable magnetic reluctance laminated or solid iron cores (for linear synchronous motor (LSM) propulsion).

Historically, MAGLEV research was revived in the 1960s in Germany and Japan by investigation of both active guideway and passive guideway solutions.

However, priority to active guideway for high-speed MAGLEVs has been ...