IRJ at UIC World Congress on High-Speed Rail 2025: CRRC Changchun displayed the lead car of a 600km/h prototype superconducting electrodynamic suspension (EDS) maglev vehicle, the latest addition to CRRC’s growing portfolio of maglev trains, at an exhibition of Chinese rolling stock held at the National Railway Test Centre in Beijing.
Work on the prototype began in January 2020 and is the culmination of more than 25 years of research into maglev technology by CRRC Changchun, including advanced research into EDS over the past decade. The vehicle was officially unveiled in July 2024 and complements CRRC’s normal-conducting maglev vehicle.
CRRC Changchun’s new EDS maglev vehicle features an optimised aerodynamic design, including a 14.35m-long streamlined nose, which cuts drag and lift forces. The carbody is manufactured from a combination of high-strength aluminium and carbon fibre to offer what CRRC says is an optimal balance between strength, stiffness and modal stability, and structural weight.
Superconducting EDS maglev achieves stable levitation through the electromagnetic forces generated by the relative motion between onboard superconducting magnets and ground-based suspension coils. Propulsion is delivered by the interaction between the induction field created by the onboard magnets and the travelling wave magnetic field created by ground-based traction coils.
At 150km/h, the magnets induce currents in the suspension coils via electromagnetic induction, creating a coupling force. The vertical component of this force lifts the train, while the horizontal component provides forward motion through differential repulsion between magnets and coils.
Superconducting EDS is notable for offering a greater range of levitation for the train. The CRRC Changchun vehicle achieves a levitation gap of 100mm and a guidance gap of 70mm, which CRRC says can deliver higher speeds, with the eight-car vehicle designed to operate at up to 600km/h.
The maglev vehicle is designed to operate on a U-shaped semi-enclosed guideway, which CRRC says eliminates the risk of it leaving the guideway. The vehicle has a self-stabilising levitation system, which removes the need for active control and ensures reliability at high speeds. The superconducting magnets can also continue to operate for more than 1 hour in the event of a power failure.
Key technological innovations include a specially-developed levitation bogie, which enables both rubber wheel contact at low speeds and levitation guidance during high-speed operation. The vehicle also features a high-temperature superconducting (HTS) magnet and low-energy cryogenic cooling system developed by CRRC, and an innovative braking system that integrates primary electric and supplementary hydraulic-based systems to achieve the required deceleration performance, which averages -1m/s2.
Other key features of the vehicle include:
- length/weight: lead car: 29.35m/<37 tonnes; intermediate car: 23.4m/<25 tonnes
- width: 3m
- height: 3.46m
- average acceleration: 0.7m/s2, and
- passenger capacity: lead car: 32; intermediate car: 52.
CRRC Changchun says construction is underway on a 200m-long test track at its plant and work is expected to be completed by the end of this year. This will enable CRRC Changchun to verify the design of the prototype and make necessary changes to the propulsion system and bogies. A longer or extended track is required to conduct levitation tests, with no plans yet confirmed on when this might be built.
Long-term plans?
While CRRC continues to actively develop maglev, the technology is not currently considered as an eventual replacement for conventional rail infrastructure. Instead, as Lyu Peiming, vice-president of Tianjin Univerisity, revealed to IRJ, future maglev lines might offer supplementary connectivity and capacity on busy existing corridors, such as Beijing - Tianjin or Beijing - Shanghai. Maglev might also be used for airport lines, as is already the case in Shanghai. While the maximum speed on this line has been reduced to 300km/h from 430km/h when it first opened, a future upgrade to 600km/h operation is considered possible.
Tourist services using 100km/h maglev technology, including a vehicle shown by CRRC Zhuzhou, are already operating in China, and this is another possible area for growth.
