The Engineer is offering 2-for-1 on videos this week with Lexus revealing tests of an entirely new form of personal transport, plus the story behind its development.
The mode of transport is a hoverboard, a much-imagined concept that has so far not made it too far beyond the realms of science fiction.
The luxury car making division of Toyota has spent the past 18 months attempting to reverse this by developing a hoverboard with scientists from IFW Dresden and evico GmbH, a Dresden-based specialist in magnetic levitation technology.
Lexus say the hoverboard is constructed from an insulated core containing high temperature superconducting blocks that are housed in cryostats, which are reservoirs of liquid nitrogen that cool the superconductors to -197°C. They add that the board is then placed above a track containing permanent magnets. When the board is cooled to its operating temperature the track’s magnetic flux lines are ‘pinned’ into place, maintaining the hover height of the board. To test the concept, around 200m of magnetic track was transported to a specially constructed “hoverpark” near Barcelona.
Note, the hoverboard isn’t likely to make it onto any wishlists just yet as it is still at the prototype stage.
And this is a big advance on Eric Laithwaite’s 1960’s work why?
I don’t understand the point of this. There won’t always be an electromagnet below to hover upon.
Or did I understand this wrong?
@Cynical Old Engineer.
Hear, Hear. How could it possibly replace all those millions of hoverboards Lathwait sold.
The British invent it, the Japanese make it and the Americans market it.
Hi Cynical, It is not based on Magnetic repulsion it is based on Flux pinning in Superconducting elements. So has nothing to do with Eric Braithwaites ideas. Apparently there are Type II superconductors that can pin magnetic flux so successully that they can hold 70000 times the wieght of the superconductor eg 1g superconductor in suitable Flux field holding 70kg. So technically if there is ever a room temperature type II superconductor that could harness the actual earth’s magnetic flux then it would be possible for this kind of hoverboard to actually run without a magnetic track at all (The Lexus design does run on a magnetic track and needs LN2 to cool it). Unlike Eric Braithwaites Mag levitation which would always need a magnetic track to work, but is of course well known now. However I am still hoping Nike will come up with self tieing shoelaces by the end of the year. Maybe Mr Fusion can come up with a flying car as well, although Doc Emmet Brown’s Flux capacitor would be even more spectacular.
Eric Laithwaite hated superconducting maglev and much preferred the linear induction motor (LIM). The prototype Tracked Hovercraft funded by the government had one of his LIMs for propulsion and ran on a cushion of air…. the project folded in the ’70s because of among other things it was awfully expensive to build and the LIM design was inherently inefficient with a low power factor.
On the other hand, Warwick University was funded by the Wolfson Foundation to investigate superconducting-based maglev and solved the major problem of how to switch a maglev train track by careful magnetic design on a flat track. Magnetically, the design was a null-flux arrangement similar to the Hoverboard in that the moving part sat in a magnetic channel with defined and controlled lateral stiffness – the analogue to the flange of a train steel wheel – but at real train size.
The Hoverboard uses a “high” temperature superconducting plate and permanent magnets in the track so it becomes an expensive installation if it is scaled up for useful payloads and real transport applications. Warwick maglev used superconducting magnets and a passive aluminium track, and a linear synchronous motor for propulsion. The designs used about the same amount of track-based material as a steel wheel on steel rail vehicle and speeds of 300mph were feasible.
All other maglev configurations have the lower parts of the vehicle encircling the track or the track was a concrete channel that makes changing to a different track direction difficult.
Inflation rates between 8-24% in the 1970’s just about finished off the UK’s work in this field. The Warwick Superconducting Linear Synchronous Motor design could be used on ordinary trains (anyone remember the Advanced Passenger Train?).
Shanghai is the place to go to see a full-sized maglev train. Unfortunately this is the German electromagnetic system that has the levitation and guidance magnets wrapped round the track so is an inflexible design. Luckily it only goes back and forth between the airport and the city outskirts.
The Lexus hoverboard is a nice party trick but isn’t going anywhere just round in circles on a fixed, very expensive track….. but who wouldn’t want to try it! Can’t see the local council upgrading the Village skateboard park, though.
Lexus could have saved a lot of money if they tried an established engineering process of electromagnetic design first rather than fiddling about with a try it and see approach but I guess they had fun….. The firm they ended up with do have a “track record” with electromagnetism and …. have a passenger-carrying version called SupraTrans II. Look for evico.de. That might just be right for an airport transit system or amusement park but will struggle to scale up to anything else. Try a search for Geoffrey Polgreen and Magnarail and British Pathe and see another back to the future magnetic magic carpet – the original British hoverbellyboard.
Oh, and the Warwick team did design a (superconducting) flux capacitor but that’s another story!