Integrated Simulation between Flexible Body of Catenary and Active Control Pantograph for Contact Force Variation Control

Abstract

Railway transport has been developed for a variety of requirements with a diversity of studies and technologies in recent years. In particular, the intercity railway transport that can be operated at speed of more than 350 km/h is the goal for the railway industry. Due to vibration and drag forces at high speed, contact force variation occurs between pantograph and catenary. This variation also causes instability in the pantograph and catenary interaction. In this study, multibody dynamics analysis is used to model the catenary. The integration of the catenary model and the pantograph model in the simulation flow produces contact force variations. A sinusoidal feed forward force and a simple feedback control force are applied to control the wave-like contact force fluctuations by means of active dampers. Evaluation of the combination of active control forces will produce optimized forces that may be able to maintain, thus improve the contact force variations.