Dynamics of a High-Speed Sliding Power Collector in Consideration of Sliding Friction

Considering the sliding friction force produced between a contactor and a rigid collecting rail with a randomly wavy surface, the paper deals with the dynamics of a sliding power collector for a very-high-speed railway. An analytical model is formulated, which has two contact points and takes into account the pitching of a contactor, the stiffness of the sliding direction in a contactor support system, and the nonlinearity of the contact stiffness between a contactor and a rail. Mainly, the influences of the sliding friction and the contact stiffness on the dynamic characteristics, i.e., the contact force variation, the probability of contact break, etc., are investigated. The equivalent linearization technique is applied in the analysis. To verify the analytical results, digital simulations are carried out by preparing the artificial collecting rail wave.