Railway Overhead Contact Systems, Catenary-Pantograph Dynamics for Power Collection at High Speeds

A program has been prepared for the GE-625 computer in Fortran IV language to compute the dynamic behavior of a catenary and pantograph for railroad cars moving at constant velocity. The catenary is considered to consist of two wires joined by elastic droppers at arbitrary locations. The upper catenary wire is in turn supported by elastic towers at arbitrary locations. Account is taken of: Tension and mass in each wire; wire sag; damping of the wires; springing between shoe and wire; springing and damping between shoe and pantograph frame; damping of the pantograph frame to the railway car; lifting of the wire away from the shoe; and stops in the pantograph to limit motion between shoe and pantograph frame. Up to eight arbitrarily spaced pantographs can be included, with as many as sixty droppers and ten towers. Force at up to ten droppers can be printed as a function of time. The additional output is catenary deflection and forces and deflections of the pantographs. Results are presented for some interesting variations of the system constants.