Abstract
Defects of a pantograph might cause widespread damage of overhead contact lines. Among these defects, there is an abnormality of the dynamic characteristic of a pantograph. This abnormality causes increase of contact loss between the pantograph and the contact lines, resulting in increase of wear of the contact strips and the contact wire. Although the abnormality is caused by damage, loss, or degradation of components of the pantograph such as springs or dampers, it is sometimes difficult to detect them by a visual inspection. Therefore, the method to detect the abnormality frequently, which does not depend on the visual inspections, has been required. The authors have developed a method to detect the defect by quantitative evaluation of the dynamic characteristic of pantograph by using sensors placed on catenary. We performed a test to verify the measurement accuracy of this method. As a result, it can be confirmed that dynamic characteristics of a pantograph can be quantitatively evaluated by this method.
