An approach to geometric optimisation of railway catenaries

ABSTRACT The quality of current collection becomes a limiting factor when the aim is to increase the speed of the present railway systems. In this work an attempt is made to improve current collection quality optimising catenary geometry by means of a genetic algorithm (GA). As contact wire height and dropper spacing are thought to be highly influential parameters, they are chosen as the optimisation variables. The results obtained show that a GA can be used to optimise catenary geometry to improve current collection quality measured in terms of the standard deviation of the contact force. Furthermore, it is highlighted that apart from the usual pre-sag, other geometric parameters should also be taken into account when designing railway catenaries.

[1]  Shahin Hedayati Kia,et al.  Pantograph-catenary interaction model comparison , 2010, IECON 2010 - 36th Annual Conference on IEEE Industrial Electronics Society.

[2]  Rainer Puschmann,et al.  Contact Lines for Electric Railways: Planning, Design, Implementation, Maintenance , 2001 .

[3]  Francisco Chinesta,et al.  Fast simulation of the pantographcatenary dynamic interaction , 2017 .

[4]  Jin-Hee Lee,et al.  Performance evaluation and design optimization using differential evolutionary algorithm of the pantograph for the high-speed train , 2012 .

[5]  Jin-Woo Kim,et al.  Design variable optimization for pantograph system of high-speed train using robust design technique , 2013 .

[6]  Slawomir Koziel,et al.  Computational Optimization, Methods and Algorithms , 2016, Computational Optimization, Methods and Algorithms.

[7]  Wei Hua Zhang,et al.  A Study of Pantograph/Catenary System Dynamics with Influence of Presag and Irregularity of Contact Wire , 2002 .

[8]  Luis Baeza,et al.  PACDIN statement of methods , 2015 .

[9]  Petter Nåvik,et al.  The use of dynamic response to evaluate and improve the optimization of existing soft railway catenary systems for higher speeds , 2016 .

[10]  Jorge Ambrósio,et al.  PantoCat statement of method , 2015 .

[11]  Ning Zhou,et al.  Investigation on dynamic performance and parameter optimization design of pantograph and catenary system , 2011 .

[12]  Petter Nåvik,et al.  Variation in predicting pantograph–catenary interaction contact forces, numerical simulations and field measurements , 2017 .

[13]  Kinam Kim,et al.  Influence of contact wire pre-sag on the dynamics of pantograph–railway catenary , 2010 .

[14]  Johannes Gerstmayr,et al.  Analysis of Thin Beams and Cables Using the Absolute Nodal Co-ordinate Formulation , 2006 .

[15]  A. Shabana Computer Implementation of the Absolute Nodal Coordinate Formulation for Flexible Multibody Dynamics , 1998 .

[16]  Stefano Bruni,et al.  Numerical Simulation of Pantograph-Overhead Equipment Interaction , 2002 .

[17]  Solomon Tesfamariam,et al.  A survey of non-gradient optimization methods in structural engineering , 2013, Adv. Eng. Softw..

[18]  Jian Zhang,et al.  Influence of Dropper Spacing on Quality of Pantograph-Catenary Current Collection , 2014 .

[19]  Etienne Balmes,et al.  Pantograph catenary dynamic optimisation based on advanced multibody and finite element co-simulation tools , 2014 .

[20]  Mitsuru Ikeda,et al.  The results of the pantograph–catenary interaction benchmark , 2015 .

[21]  Luis Baeza,et al.  A 3D absolute nodal coordinate finite element model to compute the initial configuration of a railway catenary , 2014 .

[22]  Lars Drugge,et al.  Study of Critical Sections in Catenary Systems During Multiple Pantograph Operation , 2005 .

[23]  Jorge Ambrósio,et al.  Optimization of high-speed railway pantographs for improving pantograph-catenary contact , 2013 .