Volume 6, Issue 1 (2026) – 5 articles
Cover Picture: With increasing train speeds, intensified vibrations in the pantograph-catenary (PC) system make separation between the pantograph and the contact wire - and the resulting arcing - more likely. These arcs degrade the current collection quality of high-speed trains, destabilize the traction drive system, and generate harmonics and electromagnetic interference that affect onboard communication equipment. This study investigates the impact of PC arcing at different train speeds on the traction system’s input voltage and rectifier-side direct-current (DC) voltage, and determines the corresponding acceptable arc length thresholds. An equivalent impedance model of the autotransformer traction network incorporating messenger wires and droppers is developed, together with a Habedank black-box arc model that accounts for the dynamic variations in dissipated power and voltage gradient with changing arc length. In parallel, an alternating current traction drive system model incorporating a pulse rectifier and traction motor is constructed, and its validity is verified by comparing simulation results with experimental data. Results indicate that within the allowable voltage disturbance range (input voltage 1,085-1,922 V; DC-side fluctuation ≤ 5%), the input voltage arc length threshold decreases from 0.887 cm to 0.826 cm as train speed increases from 200 km/h to 300 km/h, while the DC-side threshold drops from 1.28 cm to 0.75 cm. These findings reveal that higher speeds increase the sensitivity of the traction converter to voltage disturbances - identical arc lengths cause stronger voltage fluctuations. Moreover, for a given train speed, the input voltage arc length threshold remains higher than that of the rectifier-side DC voltage.
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