Leaf Spring Design for a Large-Capacity HTS Motor

Abstract

A large-capacity high temperature superconducting (HTS) motor, has been designed by Wuhan Institute of Marine Electric Propulsion (WIMEP), employs HTS wires in the rotor field windings and copper transposed conductor in the stator coils. In order to satisfy the requirement of the HTS motor, three groups of leaf spring which provides the flexible support of rotor are designed. Firstly, spring steel 60Si 2 Mn is chosen as the material of the leaf spring. Secondly, the structural size and piece number of the leaf spring is obtained by means of theoretical calculation and loading test. Lastly, a full scale simplified rotor low temperature test platform is development to verify the strength and the stiffness of the leaf spring. The low temperature test results show that the max strain of the leafspring group is $-459.7\,\mu \varepsilon $, which is far below the yield strength of the spring steel and satisfy the design requirements of the HTS motor.