Analysis and Reflections of Calculation Method of Braking Characteristic of an Eddy Current Brake

摘要

Eddy current brakes are widely applied in commercial vehicles and high-speed trains with the characteristics of non-contact, fast response and simple controlling. The needs of the expansion of application scope and product upgrading of eddy current brake (ECB) are very urgent. In order to clarify research ideas and research directions of calculation method of braking characteristic of eddy current brake, this paper summarizes and discusses the method of calculating air gap flux magnetic density and the braking force of ECB. It is concluded that the calculation methods of braking force are improved constantly, and future researches would focus on how to improve the calculation methods of air gap magnetic flux density which consist of handling coupling relationship among air gap field, eddy current magnetic field and excitation field, and how to deal with nonlinear characteristics of soft magnetic material.