Aerodynamic Drag Characteristics of the HTS Maglev Vehicle Running in a Low Air-Pressure Tube

High temperature superconducting Maglev-Evacuated tube transport (HTS Maglev-ETT), as a future transportation mode, has received more and more attention in recent years. Based on the world's first HTS Maglev-ETT test system, running experiments of the HTS Maglev vehicle at a low-pressure environment were carried out. Through experiments, we found that lowering the air pressure can significantly reduce the aerodynamic drag of the vehicle; The aerodynamic drag of the HTS Maglev is proportional to the air pressure in the tube and proportional to the square of the operating speed, which is in accordance with the general empirical formula. Besides, three-dimensional numerical calculations were carried out based on experiments. There is a slight difference between the experimental and simulation results, which indicates that the experimental results are credible.