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An Investigation into the Characteristics of a Novel Rotatable Pantograph Catenary System for High-Speed Trains

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Abstract

High speed trains receive traction electrical energy from a high-voltage catenary via a pantograph catenary system (PCS). As the velocity of trains increases, the traditional PCSs face significant challenges, such as strong aero resistance under high-speed conditions, severe electrochemical corrosion caused by poor contact between the pantograph strip and the catenary, harmful wear both on the pantograph strip and the contact wire produced by high-speed sliding friction between them, etc. The effectiveness and reliability of the PCS has a direct impact on the performance and safety of the HTS power supply. In order to alleviate some of these bottleneck effects related to the operation of the currently used PCSs, especially under high-speed conditions, this paper proposes a novel configuration where rotatable pantograph rollers replace the currently used pantograph strips. As the sliding friction is now replaced by rotating friction, this has numerous benefits, such as less friction heat, better heat dispersion and improved catenary-tracking performance. Moreover, should the whole system be modularized, it could adapt to different levels of traction power through adjusting the number of rollers.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation for Distinguished Young Scholars of China under Grant 51707166, and in part by the Scientific Research Project of Central University Grant 2682018CX16 as well as the Sichuan Science and Technology General Project Grant 2019YJ0213.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Electrical Engineering, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu, China

    Song Xiao, Yuanpei Luo, Jingchi Wu, Can Zhang, Yang Rao & Guangning Wu

  2. Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK

    Zhida Deng & Jan K. Sykulski

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  1. Song Xiao
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  2. Yuanpei Luo
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  3. Jingchi Wu
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  4. Can Zhang
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  5. Yang Rao
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  6. Guangning Wu
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  7. Zhida Deng
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  8. Jan K. Sykulski
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Correspondence to Song Xiao.

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Xiao, S., Luo, Y., Wu, J. et al. An Investigation into the Characteristics of a Novel Rotatable Pantograph Catenary System for High-Speed Trains. J. Electr. Eng. Technol. 16, 1721–1730 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42835-021-00664-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42835-021-00664-1

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