Analysis of Contact Force Variation between Contact Wire and Pantograph Based on Multibody Dynamics

Abstract

In recent years, high speed railway vehicle technologies have been studied and investigated in order to develop their performances with the objectives of improving riding comfort, noise reduction and high efficiency from environmental perspective. One of the essential performances is current collection stability. Operating at high speed conditions, the current collection system which consists of contact wire and pantograph suffers from contact force variation. In order to reduce such variation, pantograph design should be comprised by active control thus realizing stability. Numerical analysis can be applied to model the current collection and in particular simulate the contact force variation itself. In this study, Finite Element Method and Absolute Nodal Coordinate Formulation are used to model the wire. A free vibration experiment that focuses on the tension of wire is performed to validate the numerical models. The validated result from the experiment demonstrates the accuracy of the numerical analysis in modeling the wire. The techniques are then applied to model the contact wire for the contact force investigation. The result indicated the availability of pantograph design via simulation to achieve steady contact force.

Prediction of thickness of pantograph contact strips using Artificial Neural Networks

“…Numerous scientific papers deal with the problem of interaction between catenary and current collector [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11]. In order to keep the contact between the contact strip with the catenary, it is necessary to maintain the appropriate force on the current collector.…”

System Identification of Railway Trains Pantograph for Active Pantograph Simulation

“…The active control for pantograph system is designed based on the interaction of contact wire and pantograph analysis using multi-body dynamic simulation (1) (2) . The combination of feedback and feed forward control (f cFBFF ) is performed at speeds from 100 to 400 km/h.…”

“…In the simulation of contact wire and pantograph interaction, accurate modeling of the response of the pantograph is essential for the consistency in its prediction and control. For the purpose of active pantograph, active control approaches by simulation for contact wire and pantograph interactions have been studied previously in order to control the contact loses, one of the pantograph performances (1) (2) . Nevertheless, the pantograph model used in the study has not been validated and it focuses on the control evaluations.…”

Pantograph Sliding Strips Failure—Reliability Assessment and Damage Reduction Method Based on Decision Tree Model

“…Mokrani and Rachid presented a simplified model with three degrees of freedom (3-DOF) of the pantograph–catenary (PAC) using the fuzzy sliding mode controller. Abdullach et al [ 9 , 10 ] focused on the integration of the catenary model and the pantograph model during the simulation flow of the contact force variations. They proposed a sinusoidal feed forward force and a simple feedback control force used for controlling the wave-like contact force fluctuations by means of active dampers.…”

“…Some of the studied works were mainly concerned with the numerical methods of the simulation of dynamic phenomena [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 ], the analysis of contact force [ 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 23 ] as well as the wear of sliding strip material [ 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 24 ]. These papers were particularly focused on the material properties depending on the composition of the strip, and the interaction between the sliding strip and catenary.…”