IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MAGNETICS, VOL. 34, NO.

4, JULY 1998 1231

Analysis of Eddy-Current Brakes for High Speed Railway

P. J. Wang and S. J. Chiueh

Dept. of Power Mech. Engn., National Tsing Hua University,Hsinchu 30043, Taiwan, R.O.C.

Abstract-The analysis of eddy-current brakes for high A. Basic Assumptions

speed railway is described that shows the operational
characteristics of the brake as function of the train speed up to In order to s i m p l e the analysis, the following assumptions
300 km/hr and of the dc magnetizing current of magnetic poles. are made for both the methods.
Braking forces are generated by employing a dc excitation field
for the poles moving 7 mm above the rails. Results from the (i) The magnetic poles have no magnetic saturation.
Fourier Series Method and the Finite Difference Method are (ii) The rail is sufficiently thick in the z drection.
compared for showing the attraction and braking forces (iii) The magnetic saturation of the rail is represented by the
between the rails and the poles. The nonlinear B-H curve Frohlich form for the B-H curve.
described by the Frohlich form is assumed for the rail. The For the Fourier Series Method, the magnetic details in the
calculated operating curves are compared to the published rail is represented by Qrect-axis flux density, and additional
experimental data and also those measured in-house. assumptions are made as follows.
(iv) The flux density dstribution in the air-gap is sinusoidal
Index Term-EtiVy-current Brake, Finite Difference Method, in the x direction but is bell-shaped and symmetric to
Fourier Series Method the center line of the rail in the y direction.
(v) The magnetic poles are free of end-effects.
I . INTRODUCTION Different assumptions are made for the Finite Difference
Method. The assumptions are as follows.
In the past decades, the development of braking systems
has gradually gone beyond the adhesion limit (i.e. loss of
rolling friction) in h g h speed railway [l]. For high speed
trains, the conventional braking systems relying on the
adhesion forces between the rails and the wheels are no
longer adequate. Hence, eddy-current brakes have been
introduced and studied in the past few years [1]-[4].
Basically, the pertinent parts of a railway eddy-current
I I
brake are: (1) the dc-excited magnetic poles mounted under
the train bogie between the wheels with a fixed air-gap above I \ I
the rail as shown in Fig. 1; (2) the electrical control systems
which regulate the dc excitation current feeQng by the power
Rail \
Eddy-current brake
systems of the train. When the poles are energized and
moved at high speed above the rail, braking forces are Fig. 1 Schematic drawing of the eddy-current brake taken from the side view of
produced in terms of eddy-current losses in the rail. a train bogie.
This paper formulates the problem of calculating the
operating curves of the railway eddy-current brakes based
upon the Fourier Series Method and the Finite Difference
. SideView
Method [ 11-[2].

11.PROBLEM FORMULATION

Fig. 2 shows the structural drawing of the eddy-current

brakes which indicate a pair of north and south magnetic I . .
poles. The coordinate system is fixed on the rail with origrn
facing the leading edge of north pole tip and defined as x in
I Relative Velocity ‘i)P view F~~~~

the running direction, y in the direction of rail width, and z

in the downward direction pointing to the earth.
Manuscript received October 10, 1997. Structuraldrawing of the eddy-current brake with coordinate fixed to a
Fig. 2
P. J. Wan& +886-3-571-5131 ext. 3790, fax +886-3-572-2840, point on the rail; the eddy-current is directed to the y direction.
pjwang@pme.nthu.edu.tw.; http://www.pme.nthu.edu.tw;S . J. Chiueh.
This work was supported by the Ministry of Transportation and
Communication, Taiwan, R. 0. C. under Grant No. 85F-43CDCM-025.

0018-9464/98$10.00 0 1998 IEEE

1238

(vi) The flux density distribution in the air-gap is uniform in C. Braking and Attraction Forces
the y direction; and the flux in the air-gap is completely
z-directed and confined to the pole face only. When the eddy current or flux intensity in the rail are
(vii)The time-dependent z-component of the flux in the rail calculated, the braking and attraction forces can be obtained
is neglected. such that the braking force is generated by the eddy-current
The flux distribution in the rail can be calculated by power loss in the rail, that is
solving the governing equations. From (iv), Fourier series FB=W~I/U (10)
can be employed for solving the potential A in the rail by By the Founer Senes Method, a double integral of the
applying boundary conditions as conjugate current with respect to the x and z should give the
A, =A, = 0 at z = CO. (1) eddy-current power loss per unit length as follows
And the boundary condition in the air-gap ,is as follows.

n=1,3,... However, by the Finite Difference Method, the eddy-current

where a, is the coefficients of the Fourier series; and o = n u h power loss per unit length is calculated based on the z-
with u being the speed of the magnetic poles and -c being the derivative of H,which is'the same as in (11).
pole pitch. 1 ari, 2
From (vi) and (vii), a 2-D magnetic intensity equation in
W, = J J-<-> Adz. (12)
0 0 0 32,
the rail is formulated with boundary conditions given as As for the attraction forces, the co-energy method is
follows. employed by talung the z denvative of the co-energy stored
( 3 ) in the air-gap as follows
2n
Iz=m
u,G

H,(O,z) = - H,(z,z) at x = 0 and x = z (pole pitch), (4) 5 BZ~Y

FA =-, (13)
2PLo
where a is the half width of pole, and IS the magnetic
permeability of air.
B. Electromagnetic Field Equations
I11.COMPUTER
SIMULATIONS
Based upon (i) to (iii), the governing equations for the
eddy-current in the rail can be derived according to the Table I shows the values of the parameters of the eddy-
Maxwell's equation Together with (iv) and (v), the current brakes in railway used for the simulations. The
equations of potential A are given as follows. mechanical dimensions are obtained from the data book
L published by Knorr-Bremse GmbH., Germany [5]. But, the
VZA= j--A,
62 magnetic and electrical properties of the rail are taken from
[1]-[5]. In Table 11, the values of the parameters of the
(7) rotary-type eddy-current brake are tabulated with all the
measured mechanical dimensions.
where 6 is the penetration depth, and j is defined as f i .
The o is the angular frequency for the sinusoidal flux N.EXPERIMENTAL VERIFICATIONS
traveling in the air-gap. The 0 and p are the conductivity
and permeability of the rail Equation (6) can be analytically Because there are few published data for the eddy-current
solved by the expansions of Fourier series with (1) and (2). brakes in the literature, the experimental verificabons on the
But from (vi) and (vii), the Maxwell's equations in the simulations were not available In this paper, the data
rail are simplified as follows. published by Knorr-Bremse are first employed for the
venfications. From the data, concerns on the accuracy of
parameters are posed. Therefore, an in-house experimental
eddy-current brake apparatus was used as the supplement of
b
cL= (9) venfications. Because of the cylindrical rotor, the attraction
( b +clHx1)2 ' forces cannot measured due to the null resultant force.
where U is the speed of the poles, and b and c are the Fig. 3 shows the comparisons on the plots of bralung
constants of the Frohlich form. H, is the magnetic field forces between the simulations based upon the two methods
intensity vector in the rail accordmg to the assumptions. and the published data. Meanwhile, Fig. 4 shows the
With (3)-(5), the Finite Difference Method, based upon the comparisons on the plots of attraction forces with the same
Crank-Nicolson explicit scheme, is adopted for solving (8) conditions as in Fig. 3. In addition, experiments on the in-
[21 house apparatus were conducted. Fig 5 shows the
comparisons on the plots of bralung forces with the
conditions shown in Table I1 tested with in-house apparatus.
 1239

TableI. The values of the simulation parameters for eddy-current brake in

railway services.

Parameters SI Unit Values -

Pole Pitch (T, m) 0.09

Pole Width in x-diiection(2a, m) 0.06
Air-gap ( g ,m) 0.007
'Electrical conductivity of rail (a,a%') 2*106
Rail width (L, m) 0.12
i
Effective rail width ( b , m) 0.06
Constant b of Frohlich Form ( b ) 625

Table II The values of the mechanical dimensions for the rotary-type eddy-
current brake. 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400
Speed (U)
Simulation Parameters (SI Unit) Values Fig. 4 Comparisons on the attraction forces between the simulations and
Magnetic Excitation ( Q, AT) 450 expenmentalresults, the plots are the same as UI Fig 10.
Pole Pitch (m) 0.12
Pole width (2a, m) 0.03
500
Air-gap ( g, m) 0.00 15
Rotor length (m) 0.124
Rotor outer diameter (m) 0.1348
400

300
Comparisons on the operating characteristics of eddy-
current brakes for high speed railway between numerical
200
simulations and experimental data are shown. The results
based on the Finite Difference Method show that the braking
forces are over-predicted due to the assumption on the 2-D
flux distribution confined on the pole face in the air-gap.
100 14-
-
Experiment
Finite Diff. Method
Fourier Series Method I Ij !
But, the results based on the Fourier Series Method show that
the bralung forces are under-predcted due to the assumption
on the sinusoidal traveling flux. Experimental data are
mostly located between the curves based upon the two
methods. Because the attraction forces are calculated by the
co-energy method, the simulations are over-predicted due to
the assumption on uniform flux density in the air-gap.
22 I I I I I I I
t
20 1 ACKNOWLEDGMENT
18
h
1 The authors want to thank Professor T. C. Wang for hls
I
I I I I I I valuable discussions during the research period.
Q 14
0
s 12
REFERENCES
k

sa R N. Takahashi, S. Kawai and K. Akihashi, "Analysis of Rail Eddy-Current

Brake for High Speed Railroad Vehicles," Elec. Engn. Japan, Vol. 90,
pp.95-104, 1970.
K. Venkataratnam and M. S. Abdul Kadu, "Normalized Force-Speed
6
Curves of Eddy Current Brakes with Ferromagnetic Loss Drums," IEEE
4 Trans. Magnetics, Vol. 5, pp.656-663, 1984.
2 J. Bigeon and J. C. Sabonnadiere, "Analysis of Electromagnetic Brake,"
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 Electrical Machine and Power System, Vol. 10,pp.285-297, 1985.
J. Bigeon and J. C. Sabonnadiere. "Finite Element Analysis of an
Speed gun/hr)
Electromagnetic Brake," IEEE Trans. Magnetics, Vol. 19, pp.2632-2634,
Fig. 3 Compansons on the braking force between the simulations and 1983.
experimental results; the solid line is the results from the Finite Handbook-Brake Engineering Terms and Data, Knom-Bremse GmbH,
Difference Method, and the dashed line is the results from the Fourier Munich, Germany, 1995.
Senes Method. The solid circled-line is based upon the data from Knorr-
Bremse GmbH.