Analysis and Simulation on the Braking Force of Permanent Magnetic Brake

Ming Yao
Department of Traffic Engineering Jiangsu University Zhenjiang, Jiangsu, P.R.China; 212013 Email: ymluck@ujs.edu.cn
AbstractThe structure and working principle of permanent magnetic brake were introduced and the main factors of influencing braking ability of the permanent magnetic brake were analyzed with theory formula. By using of software as Ansoft, an finite element simulation model for magnetic brake were built up, and compare simulate value with theoretical one express that they have better consistency. Based on the simulation model, influencing factors of the braking force about permanent magnetic brake were analyzed, and the simulate results express that the height of gap between brake and track has a great influence on the braking force, so it must pay much more attention on brake design. Keywords-permanent magneti Simulation; design of brake brake; braking force;

Zhuohua Tang
Department of Traffic Engineering Jiangsu University Zhenjiang, Jiangsu, P.R.China; 212013

At present, the rail transit is in the process of increasing speed in China, whereas permanent magnetic track braking technology is still in its initial stage. So it has a great significance to study the permanent magnetic track brake technology in-depth. In this paper, the working principle and structure of permanent magnetic track brake was introduced, and with theoretical formula the braking force was calculated; in addition, by using the software as Ansoft, an finite element simulation model for magnetic brake were built up. With the simulation model, it analyzed the main factors which affect the braking force by changing the design parameters of magnetic track brake so as to provide a reference for the design of permanent magnetic track brake. II. WORKING PRINCIPLE OF PERMANENT MAGNETIC TRACK
BRAKE

I.

INTRODUCTION

With the development of rail transit, the passenger train has already got into the high-speed rail era. With the increasing of speed, there are so many people looking at trains safety, so the braking performance of train face a great challenge. Currently, braking mode of medium-low speed trains are mainly friction brake, such as block brake, disk brake etc. However, these methods belong to adhesion braking, as the train speeds increase, the adhesive coefficient reduces quickly, which makes braking force reduces correspondingly. For this reason, high-speed train is hard to stop in limited braking distance by adhesion braking mode alone. The other braking mode such as Eddy current brake, magnetic brake and other non-adhesion braking are widely used in high-speed train, the braking force of train come from the rail directly and free from adhesion coefficient, so if the high-speed train use the combination control strategy that combine adhesion braking and nonadhesion braking, the braking performance of the train will be great improved. Permanent magnetic track braking technology is a new type of brake mode developed in recent decades, which has been widely focused because of its non-consumption of energy, maintenance-free and good braking performance in high speed. This new technology, which has made good effect in the Shinkansen, was proposed by the Japan Railway Technical Research Institute (RTRI) at first. On the ICE highspeed train of German, it has also adopted liner type of permanent magnet brake produced by the Knorr Company in Swiss.

A liner type of permanent magnet brake is showed in Figure 1; its magnet axis is composed of permanent magnet and semi-circular diaphragm. Brake connects to the train by ring flange on the top cover and fixed on the bogeys. Both ends of the brake have fringe cover, and the rotation of magnet axis can be achieved by the hydraulic cylinder which is inside of the fringe cover, so it can to close or separate the magnetic field between brake and track.

Figure 1.

A liner type of permanent

The working principle of permanent magnetic track brake is as follow: When the trains run normally at high speed, because of the lift cylinder of train has taken the brake into a high position, there is no braking force between the brake and the track no matter how the magnet axis rotates; When the highspeed train need to brake, pole shoes are 5~7mm away from the track with the working of the lift cylinder that fixed on

Supported by Jiangsu Province Key Laboratory of Automotive EngineeringQC200705 Supported by Jiangsu Province Ordinary University Science Research Project08KJD580005

train, at the same time, the hydraulic cylinder drives magnet axis to the position that the permanent and U-shaped permanent magnet were separated by the semi-circular diaphragm(Figure 2a), the pole shoes will form different magnetic poles, and the closed magnetic field can cross the pole shoes and the track, because of the pole shoes are very closed to the track, the brake produces a kind of non-contact eddy current braking force.

on but also affected by the reluctance coefficient, the leakage coefficient and the height of air gap between the bottom of brake and the track etc. Therefore, the key to the design of magnet track brake is to optimize the entire structure of brake and to reduce the air gap and so on when the material and volume of permanent magnet are certain. We can achieve this purpose by establishing the simulation model of magnet track brake and using the model to analysis the parameters of entire structure. Ansoft Maxwell 2D/3D software is a powerful twodimensional/three-dimensional finite element analysis software, and it can be used to analyze motors, sensors, transformers, permanent magnet devices, actuators and other electromagnetic devices which are in the static, steady state, transient, normal condition and fault condition etc., Therefore, this article choose the Ansoft software to simulate and analyze the magnet track brake. IV. THE FINITE ELEMENT SIMULATION ANALYSIS OF
PERMANENT MAGNETIC TRACK BRAKE

Figure 2. Working principle of permanent magnetic track brake

When the train need to remove the non-contact eddy current braking force, the magnet axis was rotated to a position that the permanent magnet is relative to the U-shaped permanent magnet by controlling the hydraulic cylinder(Figure 2b), and there is no closed magnetic field formed between the pole shoes and the track, so braking force is not generated; When the speed of train decreased, the pole shoes will be adsorbed on the track under the magnetic suction to achieve the friction brake; When the train stopped, parking brake can be relied on the suction of the magnetic field. III. THE INFLUENCING FACTORS AND CALCULATION METHOD ABOUT THE SUCTION OF PERMANENT MAGNETIC TRACK BRAKE Based on the top analysis, we can see that the size of the braking force depends on the suction between the brake and the track, so it is necessary to analysis the method of calculation about the magnetic track brake. The suction can be calculated by following formula.

A. The establishment of finite element simulation mode As the structure of permanent magnet track brake is simple, and the default length of graphics that imported into the Maxwell 2D is one meter along the Z axis, therefore, we choose two-dimensional static magnetic module to analyze the suction between the brake and the track. 1) In order to simplify the simulation calculation, we make two assumptions: a) Assuming that the assembly gap of brake is 0.5mm;b) assuming that the permeability of entire structure is a constant. So we use Maxwell 2D to establish a two-dimensional finite element model of magnetic track brake. 2) the process is as follows: a) Selecting the solver; b) determining the size of the brake structure, and drawing the model; c) determining the material properties of brake; d) determining the boundary conditions of calculation and the loads; e) determining the subdivision and solving the issue. Figure 3 is the two-dimensional model of permanent magnet brake which is established in the Ansoft environment.

F = (H m Bm )

Vm Lq K r K f

(1)

Where H m Bm for the energy product of permanent magnet when working; Vm for the volume of permanent magnet;

Lq for the height of air gap between the bottom of

brake and the track; K r for the reluctance coefficient, it is related to the length of magnetic yoke and the size of work gap, in general, it changes from 1.05 to 1.45;

K f for the leakage

Figure 3. Two-dimensional model of permanent magnetic tr brake

coefficient, it depends on leakage magnet of the entire structure, and it is generally between 2.5 and 20. Formula (1) shows that the suction of permanent magnet track brake is not only related to the maximum energy product of permanent magnet, the volume of permanent magnet and so

Finite element mesh is the base for solving; we need to mesh carefully so as to ensure the accuracy of calculation. We use the form of six node triangle to split the solving field. In

order to enhance the accuracy of the solution in the region, some small triangles need to be split in some place where the magnetic field is strong or the change of magnetic field is huge, other triangles can be split according to the demands. Figure 4 is the subdivision result of two-dimensional finite element subdivision mesh.

C. The analysis on the results of finite element simulation model With the above-mentioned simulation model and the relevant parameters in Table 1, it simulated the magnetic flux throughout the brake which is shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5. The magnetic flux of brake

Figure 4. Two-dimensional finite element subdivision meshes

B. The determination of material properties on permanent magnet brake In the Ansoft software environment, the model can have one or more material regions which are air, paramagnetic materials, conductive materials and permanent magnetic material. When establishing the model, the area of each material should enter the appropriate material properties, and the material properties can be linear or non-linear. The variety of material parameters which used in the brake are shown in Table 1.and defined as follows: 1) Describing the linear material properties: a) The relative permeability; b) Coercive force (for permanent magnet); 2) Describing the non-linear material properties: a) The B/H curve can be used to represented the nonlinear materials; b) Dont consider hysteresis with a curve; c) We can describe the B/H curve respectively if it is anisotropy in the three directions, and the default B/H curve is isotropic.
TABLE I.
THE MATERIAL PARAMETERS OF THE BRAKE COMPONENTS

The figure shows that the flux of brake mainly has three parts: First, the main magnetic flux which comes from permanent magnet and through the pole shoes, air gap to the track; this part produces the suction for brake, and its flux is maximum; Second, the leakage magnetic flux which through the interval of magnetic board; this magnetic flux is small because of the separators are non-magnetic materials; Third, the magnetic flux which comes from the end of pole shoe and through the surrounding air to reach the other end of pole shoe. The suction value of the simulation is 254.5KN when the air gap between brake and track is 4mm, and the suction value calculated with formula (1) is 298.7KN when the energy product of NdFe35 takes 310KJ/m3 and other parameters, such as the reluctance coefficient, the leakage coefficient, take the middle value in the formula. Because the leakage magnet which comes from the assembly gap of various components of the brake has not considered in the process of theoretical calculation, the theoretical value larger than the simulation one is in line with practice, and it also shows that the simulation model has a good consistency with the theoretical formula. So the simulation model is successful and it can be used as a basis for further research and analysis. D. The simulation analysis on the factors which affect the suction of brake According to the analysis above, the suction of permanent magnet brake are affected by the energy product of permanent magnet, the volume of permanent magnet and the air gap between the bottom of brake and track besides the reluctance coefficient and the leakage coefficient. The formula (1) shows that the reluctance coefficient, the leakage coefficient and the volume of permanent magnet are linear correlation with the size of suction value, however, the energy product of permanent magnet and the air gap between the bottom of brake and track are not linear correlation with the suction value because of the energy product of permanent magnet at working point is closed related to the air gap between the bottom of brake and track. So it is necessary to use the simulation model to analyze the brake. The simulation results about the suction

Permanent magnet Material Rel. Permeability Mag. Coercivity A/m Mag. retentivity(T) Magnetization (A/m) NdFe35 1.1 -8.9e+5 1.23 9.79e+5

Top cover, Bottom partition, Side plank, Semi-circular diaphragm Al_N 1 0 0 0

Fixed Ugroove, Pole shoe, Track Steel_101 0 B-H Curve Entry 0 0 0

Air gap Air 1.0 0 0 0

by changing the air gap between the bottom of brake and the track is calculated and shown in Table 2.
TABLE II.
The height of air gap(mm) The simulation value(KN) THE SIMULATION RESULTS OF SUCTION ON DIFFERENT AIR GAP 0.5 259.2 1 258.5 2 257.2 4 254.5 6 252.8 8 251.1 12 248.8 20 245.6

REFERENCES
[1] Ming Yao, Ren He, Study on permanent magnetic brake system application and strategy of combination control, Manufacturing Automation, pp.57-60,2010(9) (In Chinese). [2] Bing-heng Shao, Xin Zhang, Xian-fu Zhu, The study of the modes on braking of high speed trains, Electric Drive for Locomotive, pp.1015,1995(5) (In Chinese). [3] Kyung-Ho Ha, Jung-Pyo Hong , Gyu-Tak Kim, A Study of the Design for Touch Free Linear Eddy Current Brake. IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MAGNETICS, VOL 35. pp.4031-4033, SEPTEMBER 1999 [4] Ren He, Run-xin Niu, Ying Dong, Application of permanent magnet track braking technique in railway. China safety science journal, Vol 17 (1), pp.167-170, January 2007 (In Chinese). [5] Ming Yao, Zhuo-hua Tang, A kind of linear permanent magnet track brake, 201110086650.9[P], 2011(4) (In Chinese). [6] Ming Yao, Ren He, Xiao-na Zhang, A kind of permanent magnet track brake, 200910213026.3[P], 2009(12) (In Chinese). [7] Ming-xi Mo, Bao-xia Zhang, Permanent magnet track braking technique and correlative calculations, Electric Locomotives & Mass Transit Vehicles, pp.23-25, 2009(3) (In Chinese). [8] Sohel Anwar, A Parametric Model of an Eddy Current Electric Machine for Automotive Braking Applications. IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology, Vol. 12, No. 3, MAY 2004. [9] Cai-hong Zhu, Magnetic Field Finite Element Analysis of Permanent Magnet Brushless DC Motors Based on Ansoft, Micromotors, pp.103105,2010(6) (In Chinese). [10] Zhong-yang Sun, Practical tutorial for procedures of train traction computation. China railway publishing house, Beijing, 1999 (In Chinese).

We get the air gap suction curve by taking the height of air gap as horizontal ordinate and the simulation value of suction as vertical coordinate, and the curve is shown in Figure 6.

Figure 6.

Air gap suction curve of the simulation model

Figure 6 shows that the suction of brake declines with the increasing of the height of air gap, and the suction will increase largely when the air gap decreases. The relationship between the air gap and the suction looks like the logarithmic function. So the suction can be improved significantly by reducing the height of the air gap between the bottom of brake and the track when the brake is working. CONCLUSION According to the analysis above, we know that the suction of the permanent magnet track brake is mainly affected by the energy product of the permanent magnet at working point and the height of air gap when the material and the volume of the permanent magnet are constant, and the suction of the permanent magnet track brake will increase significantly with the decreasing of the air gap which shows a non-linear relationship. Therefore, we can optimize the brake in the process of designing by reducing the size of the magnetic yoke and increasing the size of the permanent magnet when the external size of brake is constant, meanwhile, it should pay attention to the rigor of the entire structure of brake, to reduce the interval between the permanent magnet and magnetic yoke and to decrease the air gap between the bottom of brake and the track. When the train is carrying on the friction brake, because the debris result from the rub of brake and track will further increase the air gap between the bottom of brake and the track, it should exclude the debris smoothly to ensure the brake has a good braking performance.