HTS-Magnet Levitation Bearing for Flywheel Energy Storage

Zu-Le Xia；Ki Ma；Rodger Cooley；Wei-Kan Chu

Chinese Journal of Physics

34卷2S期（1996 / 04 / 01）

455 - 461

英文

Advances in high temperature superconducting matelials have brought about the possibility of design of totally passive bearings with low friction loss. Bearings with such advantages are useful for kinetic energy storage designs. We have designed and constructed a flywheel prototype using a concept of a hybrid superconducting magnetic bearing (HSMB). The HSMB design uses magnetic forces from permanent magnets for levitation and high temperature superconductors (HTS) in between the magnets for stabilization. The bearings levitate a rotor of 19 kg and the flywheel can currently rotate up to 6,000 RPM. The result from the recent spin-down tests indicates an average frictional energy loss ＜ 2% per hour. Most of the friction is due to the condition of an imperfect system assembly alignment and an unbalanced rotor. Improvement of the system is ongoing. This paper summarizes our research activity based on some of the results reported recently at several conferences [1,2,3].