Multi-domain approach to modeling pantograph-catenary interaction

When a railway pantograph interacts with a catenary during the movement of a rail vehicle, several physical phenomena, both mechanical and electrical, occur in the system. These phenomena affect the quality of power supply of a train from traction devices. The unfavourable arcing occurring when there are disturbances of contact between the pantograph’s slider and the catenary contact wire. In turn, it results in energy loss and increased wear of the components of the system. When designing new solutions, computational models are helpful to predict the quality of interaction between the components of the pantograph-contact line system already at the virtual prototyping stage. In this paper, the authors comprehensively present a multi-domain (multiphysics) model, which takes into account necessary conditions for interaction between pantograph elements and a catenary. Finally, the impact of the individual physical domains are analysed and the ones which have a significant impact on the simulation of the operation results are identified.