Effect of the passive damping plate on the vertical stability of permanent magnet electrodynamic suspension system

The vertical stability of permanent magnet (PM) electrodynamic suspension (EDS) system with a passive damping plate is studied because of the well‐known under‐damped nature of the EDS suspension system. The passive damping plate is installed under the Halbach permanent magnet array. When the vehicle‐mounted Halbach array and passive damping plate move to cut the track conductive plate, the 2D eddy current force is derived by establishing equations of magnetic vector potentials and using the Maxwell stress tensor method. And a 2D finite‐element model (FEM) is built to validate the accuracy of the derived levitation force equation. Based on the derived levitation force equation, the vertical stability of the PM EDS system with a passive damping plate and the effects of the main parameters on the damping ratio are analysed. To increase damping of the PM EDS system with a non‐magnetic conductor plate track, the author studies the vertical stability of the PM EDS system with a passive damping plate by analytical calculation and finite element simulation, derives the space magnetic field and levitation force equations in Section 2, verifies the analytical model via 2D finite element model (FEM) in Section 3, and analyses the effects of the passive damping plate on the vertical stability of the PM EDS system based on the derived levitation force equation in Section 4 and Section 5.