STRUCTURES FOR HIGH TEMPERATURE SUPERCONDUCTING MAGNETIC BEARINGS

As a technology, superconductivity has had a great contribution to the advancement of medical science, electronics, astronomy and transportation. With the improvements in the field of superconductivity, the discovery of new materials with better properties, commercialization of these materials, and regarding the importance of rotary equipment in major industry, trends in research and development of superconducting magnetic bearings is broadened day by day. High efficiency compared to the cost of manufacturing and maintenance of these bearings as well as the increasing need to economic save in key industry, could reinforce the tendency to use these bearings instead of conventional bearings. Superconducting magnetic bearings have various structures, all of which can be used for various applications. In recent decades efforts have been made to design new structures for specific applications. In this paper a general review of magnetic bearings’ history as well as their existing structures is investigated and the theoretical and experimental results have been presented for a studied bearing system.