The term ‘Maglev’ stands for magnetic levitation and can be done in a few ways. Since the invention of Maglev technology in the 1960s, scientists have been desperately trying to make this commercial worldwide. There are two types of Maglev trains: repulsive force and attraction force. Repulsive forces used two magnets with the same poles facing each other, creating a repulsive force to hover. The attractive force uses an electromagnet to attract another magnet, however, if the electromagnetic is continuously being turned on and off, it defies gravity and will float the object it’s attracting.
How Can it Be Used?
Scientists around the world are trying to create sustainable and commercially available Maglev trains that have the potential to reach speeds as high as 3,500 km/h. The current problem with trains is that the wheels and track create friction that causes the speed of the train to decrease immensely. But, if we take both of those factors out, there’s no friction between the train and the track. The current fastest train with wheels is the French TGV, with the highest speed of 574.8 km/h. The Japanese use the repulsive force of magnets to levitate their trains and have reached speeds around 580 km/h on test tracks, which is just faster than the TGV but can achieve much higher speeds. Contrary to the Japanese, the Germans use the force of attraction to elevate the train; this method is much more efficient and viable because you only need to turn on the part of the track at is in use and still maintain the same amount of speed.
Issues
Even though it sounds straightforward, there are many issues that scientists had to deal with. For example, not only does the train have to be balanced vertically, but it also must be balanced horizontally, so it doesn’t tip to one side or have unbalanced weight distribution. This technology is also very, very expensive because it first requires a train that is specially built, then a whole track with Maglev technology full of electromagnets and control stations to power the entire system. Shanghai is one of the only places with a commercially running Maglev train because building a Maglev system costs up to 50 million euros per mile of Maglev technology.
Fun Facts
The car company Lexus revealed a commercial with a hoverboard powered by a superconductor continually being cooled by liquid nitrogen. A superconductor is an object with electrons that can move without any resistance, but the problem with these is that they only work when they are cooled below room temperature, so to make the hoverboard actually hover liquid nitrogen must be added continuously to keep the board floating. The whole commercial was also shot on a specially built track consisting of hidden magnetic tracks/rails for the board to run on. The board itself cost Lexus around $10,000 to $20,000, and the specialized track costs a lot more money.
On October 11th, 2003, a 30 km track had been built from Shanghai to the Shanghai airport using the Germans attraction method. This track now has the fastest passenger train that usually runs at a speed of 430 km/h.
If the Maglev system is built in a vacuum tube, meaning there is zero air resistance, the Maglev train can reach speeds up to 3,500 km/h, which will make a trip from Tokyo to London only three and a half hours long.
Written by The Lost Man
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