Sunday, December 22, 2013 4:57:51 AM
drawman61: Unfortunately that doesn't work either, each time you make a magnet do work you degrade its field strength somewhat, up until the point where it will be completely drained and energy needs to be added to it for it to do its thing. The laws of thermodynamics makes stuff so boring. :(
Saturday, December 21, 2013 6:30:31 PM
Angilion, why do you say that maglev doesn't reduce the amount of power required to accelerate the train`s mass? If the friction coefficient is drastically reduced, doesn`t that directly reduce the amount of power required to accelerate? I`m not disagreeing, I`m genuinely asking.
And you`re right...but rolling resistance on a train with steel wheels on a steel track is not very high. Wheeled trains are suprisingly efficient in that respect.
So yes, maglev has lower power requirements for acceleration than a wheeled train...but not as much lower as it might seem. It also has an additional power requirement for any functioning - generating the magnetic field.
Also, some versions of maglev require wheeled movement at lower speeds anyway.
I was wrong in ignoring rolling resistance, but I *think* that overall I am right about power requirements being similar.