Numeric analysis of pantograph-catenary interaction in curved railway tracks

The pantograph-catenary interface is the system responsible to provide an interrupted energy supply to power the railway electric traction vehicles. The analysis of the dynamic behavior of both the catenary and the pantograph as well as its interaction have been object of research in order to improve the energy collection quality. Hence, numeric simulation tools have been developed to evaluate the interaction between these systems. In this work an approach for the dynamic analysis of pantograph-catenary interaction in curved railway tracks is presented where until now only straight tracks have been considered. Here both the catenary model and the trajectory of the pantograph are set in relation to the geometry of the track which is defined as parametric curve with an associated local reference frame that defines the orientation of the track running surface along its length. The pantograph is modeled following a multibody formulation in order to be able to coup with its generalized trajectory. The finite element method is used to model the catenary and a co-simulation procedure is set to bridge the dynamic analysis between both models. To demonstrate this approach a set of numeric simulations are presented for catenary systems set on tracks with different curve radii.