Zigang Deng

Bio: Zigang Deng is an academic researcher from Southwest Jiaotong University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Maglev & Levitation. The author has an hindex of 23, co-authored 197 publications receiving 1961 citations. Previous affiliations of Zigang Deng include Chinese Ministry of Education & Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology.

A High-Temperature Superconducting Maglev Ring Test Line Developed in Chengdu, China

Abstract: A 45-m-long high-temperature superconducting (HTS) Maglev ring test line, named “Super-Maglev,” has been successfully developed in Chengdu, China, in February 2013, 12 years after the birth of the first man-loading HTS Maglev test vehicle. The Maglev vehicle (2.2 m in length, 1.1 m in width) is designed for one passenger with a levitation height of 10–20 mm; the permanent-magnet guideway (PMG) (45 m in length, 0.77 m of track gauge) is a racetrack shape with a curve radius of 6 m; the driving is accomplished by a linear induction motor with a maximum running speed of 50 km/h. The linear motor is composed of four submotors installed at one straight section in the middle of the double PMGs, and the total length is 3 m. This second-generation HTS Maglev vehicle system is highlighted by the cost-performance and the wireless multiparameter onboard monitoring function. The current same-level load capability has been achieved over a small-section low-cost PMG whose cross-sectional area is only 3000 mm 2 . On the vehicle, parameters of levitation weight, levitation height, running speed, acceleration, lateral offset, online position, and total running distance of the vehicle are real-time monitored and displayed on the onboard tablet computer. The system component and test data are reported in detail in this paper.

A High-Temperature Superconducting Maglev-Evacuated Tube Transport (HTS Maglev-ETT) Test System

Abstract: As a bellwether transportation mode, albeit with hot controversy, evacuated tube transport (ETT) can dramatically reduce air friction, and incorporating Maglev technology could also thoroughly eliminate wheel-rail friction. It is not difficult to imagine that incorporation of these two technologies could establish an innovative transportation system, with particular advantages in terms of high speed, safety, energy saving, and environmental protection. The integration of these two technologies has been a great challenge, however, due to the composite technology. To realize this revolutionary idea, we have successfully developed the first proof-of-principle prototype of a 45-m-long high-temperature superconducting Maglev evacuated tube transport (HTS Maglev-ETT) test system, called the “Super-Maglev,” based on the passive self-stable HTS Maglev conceived in our group in 2000. The system mainly consists of three parts: an HTS Maglev-vehicle-guideway coupling system with 1-t load capability at a levitation gap of 10 mm, a 45-m-long racetrack-type evacuated tube with a 2-m-diameter circular cross section pumped by a hybrid air extraction system, and a 3-m linear induction motor to provide sectional propulsion. The system can achieve a pressure as low as 2.9 kPa in the tube. Experiments show that air drag on the vehicle is greatly reduced at that low air pressure, and a maximum speed of 50 km/h was recorded on the 6-m-diameter test guideway. Theoretically, the reduction of the aerodynamic consumed power could reach as high as to 90% under 10 kPa. This “Super-Maglev” strongly demonstrates the feasibility and potential merits of the HTS Maglev-ETT transportation concept.

Superconductivity and the environment: a Roadmap

Abstract: There is universal agreement between the United Nations and governments from the richest to the poorest nations that humanity faces unprecedented global challenges relating to sustainable energy, clean water, low-emission transportation, coping with climate change and natural disasters, and reclaiming use of land. We have invited researchers from a range of eclectic research areas to provide a Roadmap of how superconducting technologies could address these major challenges confronting humanity.Superconductivity has, over the century since its discovery by Kamerlingh Onnes in 1911, promised to provide solutions to many challenges. So far, most superconducting technologies are esoteric systems that are used in laboratories and hospitals. Large science projects have long appreciated the ability of superconductivity to efficiently create high magnetic fields that are otherwise very costly to achieve with ordinary materials. The most successful applications outside of large science are high-field magnets for magnetic resonance imaging, laboratory magnetometers for mineral and materials characterization, filters for mobile communications, and magnetoencephalography for understanding the human brain.The stage is now set for superconductivity to make more general contributions. Humanity uses practically unthinkable amounts of energy to drive our modern way of life. Overall, global power usage has been predicted to almost double from 16.5 to 30?TW in the next four decades (2011 Equinox Summit: Energy 2030 http://wgsi.org/publications-resources).The economy with which electrons carry energy compels the continued quest for efficient superconducting power generation, energy storage, and power transmission. The growing global population requires new arable land and treatment of water, especially in remote areas, and superconductivity offers unique solutions to these problems. Exquisite detectors give warning of changes that are otherwise invisible. Prediction of climate and disasters will be helped by future supercomputer technologies that support huge amounts of data and sophisticated modeling, and with the aid of superconductivity these systems might not require the energy of a large city.We present different sections on applications that could address (or are addressing) a range of environmental issues. The Roadmap covers water purification, power distribution and storage, low-environmental impact transport, environmental sensing (particularly for the removal of unexploded munitions), monitoring the Earth?s magnetic fields for earthquakes and major solar activity, and, finally, developing a petaflop supercomputer that only requires 3% of the current supercomputer power provision while being 50 times faster.Access to fresh water. With only 2.5% of the water on Earth being fresh and climate change modeling forecasting that many areas will become drier, the ability to recycle water and achieve compact water recycling systems for sewage or ground water treatment is critical. The first section (by Nishijima) points to the potential of superconducting magnetic separation to enable water recycling and reuse.Energy. The Equinox Summit held in Waterloo Canada 2011?(2011 Equinox Summit: Energy 2030 http://wgsi.org/publications-resources) identified electricity use as humanity?s largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. Our appetite for electricity is growing faster than for any other form of energy. The communiqu? from the summit said ?Transforming the ways we generate, distribute and store electricity is among the most pressing challenges facing society today?. If we want to stabilize CO2 levels in our atmosphere at 550 parts per million, all of that growth needs to be met by non-carbon forms of energy? (2011 Equinox Summit: Energy 2030 http://wgsi.org/publications-resources). Superconducting technologies can provide the energy efficiencies to achieve, in the European Union alone, 33?65% of the required reduction in greenhouse gas emissions according to the Kyoto Protocol (Hartikainen et?al 2003 Supercond. Sci. Technol. 16 963). New technologies would include superconducting energy storage systems to effectively store power generation from renewable sources as well as high-temperature superconducting systems used in generators, transformers and synchronous motors in power stations and heavy-industry facilities. However, to be effective, these systems must be superior to conventional systems and, in reality, market penetration will occur as existing electrical machinery is written off. At current write-off rates, to achieve a 50% transfer to superconducting systems will take 20?years (Hartikainen et?al 2003 Supercond. Sci. Technol. 16 963).The Roadmap next considers dc transmission of green power with a section by Eckroad and Marian who provide an update on the development of superconducting power transmission lines in view of recent sustainability studies. The potential of magnetic energy storage is then presented by Coi and Kim, who argue that a successful transition to wind and solar power generation must be harmonized with the conventional electrical network, which requires a storage technology with a fast response and long backup times.Transport. Superconducting Maglev trains and motors for international shipping have the potential to considerably reduce the emissions that contribute to greenhouse gases while improving their economic viability by reducing losses and improving efficiencies. International shipping, alone, contributes 3% of the greenhouse gas emissions. Three sections of the Roadmap identify how high-speed rail can be a major solution to providing fast, low energy, environmentally-friendly transport enabling reduction in automobile and aircraft travel by offering an alternative that is very competitive. With maritime international environmental regulations tightening, HTS motors with the characteristics of high torque and compactness will become important devices for high-performance and low-emission electric ship propulsion systems. A section on the development of a megawatt-class superconducting motor for ship propulsion is presented by Umemoto.Monitoring in manufacturing for waste reduction. Environmental impact from the waste created by the manufacturing sector and the need to make manufacturing efficient can be addressed by terahertz imaging. This technology has great potential in non-destructive testing, industrial process monitoring and control to greatly improve the industry process efficiency and reliability by reducing waste materials and toxic by-products. The section by Du shows how terahertz imaging can provide process and property information such as rust levels under paint that can assist with the reduction of waste in manufacturing and maintenance.Monitoring for naturally occurring disturbances. The environmental and social impact of natural disasters is mounting. Febvre provides the Roadmap for the use of ultra-sensitive magnetometry to understand geomagnetic phenomena and Earth?ionosphere couplings through the study of very small variations of the magnetic field. This magnetic monitoring has many implications for understanding our environment and providing new tools for early warning of natural hazards, either on Earth or in space which will enable us to be better prepared for natural disasters.Restoring environments after military use. Throughout the world, there are many areas confirmed or suspected of being contaminated by unexploded munitions known as unexploded ordnance (UXO). Its presence is the result of wars and training of military forces. Areas affected by UXO contamination are hazardous to the public and have a major influence on the nature of land use. UXO has impact in developed as well as developing nations. For example, the USA has UXO dating back to the American Civil War and countries such as Cambodia are living with landmines as a daily issue due to more recent wars. Underwater UXO has caused severe impacts such as the explosion in 1969 in the waters of Kent in the UK that caused a reading of 4.5 on the Richter scale for earthquake monitors. Another example was a land-based detonation of a 500?kg World War II bomb in Germany killing three people in 2010. There is countless UXO from recent conflicts worldwide. Detection and accurate location with 100% reliability is required to return land to safe civilian use. Keenan provides details of a prototype magnetic gradiometer developed for this purpose.Reducing power needs for high-end IT. Supercomputers are so large that they are close to requiring their own small power plant to support the energy needed to run the computer. For example, in 2011 Facebook data centers and operations used 532 million kW hours of energy. Mukhanov explores the potential of reducing the power dissipation for future supercomputers from more than 500?MW for Exascale systems to 0.2?MW by using superconducting-ferromagnetic Josephson junctions for magnetic memory and programmable logic.Clearly superconductivity is an ultimate energy-saving technology, and its practical implementation will contribute to the reduction of CO2 emissions, improved water purification, reduction of waste and timely preparedness for natural disasters or significant events. This Roadmap shows how the application of superconducting technologies will have a significant impact when they are adopted.

A two-pole Halbach permanent magnet guideway for high temperature superconducting Maglev vehicle

Abstract: In order to improve the levitation performance of the high temperature superconducting (HTS) magnetic levitation (Maglev) vehicle, a two-pole Halbach array’s permanent magnet guideway (PMG) is proposed, which is called as Halbach PMG. The finite element method (FEM) calculations indicate that Halbach PMG has a wider high-field region than the present PMG of equal PM’s transverse section. The levitation force of bulk HTSCs with the present PMG and Halbach PMG are measured. The results show that at different levitation gaps, the force ratios based on the Halbach PMG are about 2.3 times larger than that on the present PMG, which greatly increases the load capability of the system. Therefore, both the numerical analysis and experimental results have confirmed that the Halbach PMG will further enhance the performance of the vehicle and it is possible to decrease the total numbers of onboard HTSCs, reducing overall costs. So based on the Halbach PMG, we further study the width ratios between HTSCs and PMG for making the better use of the onboard HTSCs. Some preliminary results are given. These results are important for further HTS Maglev vehicle system designs using Halbach PMG.

High-efficiency and low-cost permanent magnet guideway consideration for high-Tc superconducting Maglev vehicle practical application

Abstract: In order to improve the cost performance of the present high-Tc superconducting (HTS) Maglev vehicle system for practical application, the multi-pole permanent magnet guideway (PMG) concept was introduced. A well-known double-pole Halbach PMG was chosen as a representative of multi-pole PMGs to compare with traditional monopole PMGs from the point of view of levitation efficiency and cost. Experimental results show that YBCO bulks above the double-pole Halbach PMG can exhibit better load capability and guidance performance as well as dynamics stability at the applied working height between the bulk HTSC and the PMG due to a more reasonable magnetic field distribution at the working range of bulk HTSC. Furthermore, the double-pole PMG configuration can play a more important role in improving guidance performance due to the potential-well field configuration. By comparing with former 'century' PMGs, the double-pole Halbach PMG shows another remarkable advantage in reducing the cost of levitation. As another necessary issue, magnetic field homogeneity and the corresponding magnetic drag force of a double-pole Halbach PMG has been considered by experiment in spite of the above highlights. Synthetically, the multi-pole Halbach PMG design is concluded to be one important choice for future HTS Maglev vehicle applications because of its high efficiency and low cost.

Emission of Coherent THz-Radiation from Superconductors.

Abstract: Compact solid-state sources of terahertz (THz) radiation are being sought for sensing, imaging, and spectroscopy applications across the physical and biological sciences. We demonstrate that coherent continuous-wave THz radiation of sizable power can be extracted from intrinsic Josephson junctions in the layered high-temperature superconductor Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8. In analogy to a laser cavity, the excitation of an electromagnetic cavity resonance inside the sample generates a macroscopic coherent state in which a large number of junctions are synchronized to oscillate in phase. The emission power is found to increase as the square of the number of junctions reaching values of 0.5 microwatt at frequencies up to 0.85 THz, and persists up to ∼50 kelvin. These results should stimulate the development of superconducting compact sources of THz radiation.

Superconductor bearings, flywheels and transportation

Abstract: This paper describes the present status of high temperature superconductors (HTS) and of bulk superconducting magnet devices, their use in bearings, in flywheel energy storage systems (FESS) and linear transport magnetic levitation (Maglev) systems. We report and review the concepts of multi-seeded REBCO bulk superconductor fabrication. The multi-grain bulks increase the averaged trapped magnetic flux density up to 40% compared to single-grain assembly in large-scale applications. HTS magnetic bearings with permanent magnet (PM) excitation were studied and scaled up to maximum forces of 10 kN axially and 4.5 kN radially. We examine the technology of the high-gradient magnetic bearing concept and verify it experimentally. A large HTS bearing is tested for stabilizing a 600 kg rotor of a 5 kWh/250 kW flywheel system. The flywheel rotor tests show the requirement for additional damping. Our compact flywheel system is compared with similar HTS–FESS projects. A small-scale compact YBCO bearing with in situ Stirling cryocooler is constructed and investigated for mobile applications. Next we show a successfully developed modular linear Maglev system for magnetic train operation. Each module levitates 0.25t at 10 mm distance during one-day operation without refilling LN2. More than 30 vacuum cryostats containing multi-seeded YBCO blocks are fabricated and are tested now in Germany, China and Brazil.

Coated conductors for power applications: materials challenges

Abstract: This manuscript reports on the recent progress and the remaining materials challenges in the development of coated conductors (CCs) for power applications and magnets, with a particular emphasis on the different initiatives being active at present in Europe. We first summarize the scientific and technological scope where CCs have been raised as a complex technology product and then we show that there exists still much room for performance improvement. The objectives and CC architectures being explored in the scope of the European project EUROTAPES are widely described and their potential in generating novel breakthroughs emphasized. The overall goal of this project is to create synergy among academic and industrial partners to go well beyond the state of the art in several scientific issues related to CCs’ enhanced performances and to develop nanoengineered CCs with reduced costs, using high throughput manufacturing processes which incorporate quality control tools and so lead to higher yields. Three general application targets are considered which will require different conductor architectures and performances and so the strategy is to combine vacuum and chemical solution deposition approaches to achieve the targeted goals. A few examples of such approaches are described related to defining new conductor architectures and shapes, as well as vortex pinning enhancement through novel paths towards nanostructure generation. Particular emphasis is made on solution chemistry approaches. We also describe the efforts being made in transforming the CCs into assembled conductors and cables which achieve appealing mechanical and electromagnetic performances for power systems. Finally, we briefly mention some outstanding superconducting power application projects being active at present, in Europe and worldwide, to exemplify the strong advances in reaching the demands to integrate them in a new electrical engineering paradigm.

High power density superconducting rotating machines—development status and technology roadmap

Abstract: Superconducting technology applications in electric machines have long been pursued due to their significant advantages of higher efficiency and power density over conventional technology. However, in spite of many successful technology demonstrations, commercial adoption has been slow, presumably because the threshold for value versus cost and technology risk has not yet been crossed. One likely path for disruptive superconducting technology in commercial products could be in applications where its advantages become key enablers for systems which are not practical with conventional technology. To help systems engineers assess the viability of such future solutions, we present a technology roadmap for superconducting machines. The timeline considered was ten years to attain a Technology Readiness Level of 6+, with systems demonstrated in a relevant environment. Future projections, by definition, are based on the judgment of specialists, and can be subjective. Attempts have been made to obtain input from a broad set of organizations for an inclusive opinion. This document was generated Superconductor Science and Technology Supercond. Sci. Technol. 30 (2017) 123002 (41pp) https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6668/aa833e Original content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI. 0953-2048/17/123002+41$33.00 © 2017 IOP Publishing Ltd Printed in the UK 1 through a series of teleconferences and in-person meetings, including meetings at the 2015 IEEE PES General meeting in Denver, CO, the 2015 ECCE in Montreal, Canada, and a final workshop in April 2016 at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign that brought together a broad group of technical experts spanning the industry, government and academia.