Transport · Built and demonstrated
Maglev
Japan’s superconducting maglev reached 603 km/h on a test track.
The record behind maglev
The superconducting maglev · JR CentralSuperconductors in maglev
Electrodynamic suspension levitates a vehicle by inducing currents in coils in the guideway as it passes, and that requires a very strong magnet on board. What it gives back is a levitation gap measured in centimeters rather than millimeters, which makes the system tolerant of track settlement and of earthquakes. That gap, not the top speed, is the engineering reason for the superconductor. The speed record is the demonstration.
What is stopping maglev
Civil engineering rather than conductor. The guideway is the cost, and it is an entirely new right of way for a vehicle that cannot run on existing track. The onboard cryogenics have now been solved twice over, first with niobium-titanium and later with high-temperature conductor, and neither solution made the route any cheaper to build.
What a better material would change for maglev
No conductor changes the cost of a guideway. What a warmer one buys is a simpler train: less onboard cryogenics, less mass to levitate, less to maintain over a service life. That is a real saving, and it is small next to the civil engineering it sits on.
Conductors used in maglev
Near maglev, in transport
SuperMatics is a platform infrastructure company for superconducting devices: software that finds the material and the process, lab work that makes and measures it, and pilot manufacturing with industrial partners.If you are working on something in this field and a material is what stands in the way, tell us about it.