Computation of eddy current losses in the mounting rail of a magnetically levitated conveyor vehicle

Purpose - The paper proposes presenting a transient 3D-FE computation approach of the eddy current losses in the rail and the flux concentrating pieces of a magnetically levitated conveyor vehicle.Design methodology approach - The calculation process is started with a coarse mesh in order to reduce computation time without losing accuracy. Then mesh refinement iterations are performed, based on the estimation of the discretisation error. The results of the post processing are the levitation force, the braking force and the eddy current losses.Findings - The paper finds that by means of adaptive mesh refinement, the error is significantly reduced with a minimum increase of computation time. The hot spots of eddy current losses can be localised by visualizing the eddy current density. At nominal speed, especially the huge amount of eddy current losses in the flux concentrating pieces must be considered during the development process.Research limitations implications - For further development, the linear motor will be modified with the results of FE computations to reduce eddy current losses. Therefore, different materials and a variation of geometry will be considered.Practical implications - Magnetically levitated systems excite eddy current losses instead of bearing losses. These losses must be taken into account when developing the drive.Originality value - It proposes a transient 3D-FE approach for computing eddy current losses accurately with a minimum increase of computation time.