Pantograph–catenary electrical contact system of high-speed railways: recent progress, challenges, and outlooks

Abstract

As the unique power entrance, the pantograph–catenary electrical contact system maintains the efficiency and reliability of power transmission for the high-speed train. Along with the fast development of high-speed railways all over the world, some commercialized lines are built for covering the remote places under harsh environment, especially in China; these environmental elements including wind, sand, rain, thunder, ice and snow need to be considered during the design of the pantograph–catenary system. The pantograph–catenary system includes the pantograph, the contact wire and the interface—pantograph slide. As the key component, this pantograph slide plays a critical role in reliable power transmission under dynamic condition. The fundamental material characteristics of the pantograph slide and contact wire such as electrical conductivity, impact resistance, wear resistance, etc., directly determine the sliding electrical contact performance of the pantograph–catenary system; meanwhile, different detection methods of the pantograph–catenary system are crucial for the reliability of service and maintenance. In addition, the challenges brought from extreme operational conditions are discussed, taking the Sichuan–Tibet Railway currently under construction as a special example with the high-altitude climate. The outlook for developing the ultra-high-speed train equipped with the novel pantograph–catenary system which can address the harsher operational environment is also involved. This paper has provided a comprehensive review of the high-speed railway pantograph–catenary systems, including its progress, challenges, outlooks in the history and future.

Hardware-in-the-Loop Test Bench for Simulation of Catenary–Pantograph Interaction (CPI) with Linear Camera Measurement

“…Contact loss [ 28 , 40 , 41 , 42 ] is a well-known cause of catenary wear and can cause severe problems with the power supply and the safe running of trains. Because of the arcing phenomenon, cameras quickly detect the contact loss effect on the current transmission through the pantograph [ 43 , 44 ].…”

Study on current-carrying tribological characteristics of C-Cu sliding electric contacts under water accumulation from rainfall condition

“…C-Cu contact pairs are used in pantograph-catenary systems in railway transportation due to their excellent sliding electrical contact characteristics, such as self-lubrication and high conductivity, and they play an extremely important role in energy transmission [1][2][3][4][5][6]. With the rapid development of electrified railways in China, studying the abnormal wear of C-Cu materials has become a hotspot in electrified railways [7,8].…”

Inverse design from the catenary problem

“…The catenary problem is an iconic example in classical mechanics which describes the natural shape of a cable hanging from two points under the action of gravity and appears in several engineering applications [16][17][18][19]. The laws of static equilibrium imply that the slope of a cable at any point along its length must be proportional to the accumulated mass of its arc length below that point.…”