The decay properties of the trapped magnetic field in HTS bulk superconducting actuator by AC controlled magnetic field

Abstract

The electric device applications of a high temperature superconducting (HTS) bulk magnet, having stable levitation and suspension properties according to their strong flux pinning force, have been proposed and developed. We have been investigating a three-dimensional (3-D) superconducting actuator using HTS bulks to develop a non-contract transportation device which moves freely in space. It is certain for our proposed 3-D superconducting actuator to be useful as a transporter used in a clean room where silicon wafers, which do not like mechanical contact and dust, are manufactured. The proposed actuator consists of the trapped HTS bulk as a mover and two-dimensionally arranged electromagnets as a stator. Up to now, the electromagnets consisted with iron core and copper coil were used as a stator, and each electromagnet was individually controlled using DC power supplies. In our previous work, the unstable movement characteristics of HTS bulk were observed under the DC operation, and the AC electromagnets driven with AC controlled current was proposed to solve these problems. In general, the trapped magnetic field in HTS bulk was decayed by a time-varying external magnetic field. Thus, it needs to optimize the shapes of AC electromagnets and operating patterns, the decay properties of the trapped magnetic field in the HTS bulk mover by the AC magnetic field should be cleared. In this paper, the influences of the frequency, the overall operating time, the strength of magnetization field and drive current against the decay of trapped magnetic field were experimentally studied using the fabricated AC electromagnets.