CALPE and INDICA. Two tools for calculating the dynamic pantograph/catenary interaction

Spain is one of the world-wide leaders in High Speed Railways, being the most vast in Europe and the second in the world. Other countries are interested in the technology developed by the Spanish Administrator in charge of the public Railways Infrastructure (ADIF). This paper describes the work carried out during more than fifteen years between CALPE team, a multidisciplinary research group of civil engineers and computer scientist and ADIF. As a result of this intensive collaboration, two successful tools allow ADIF to be more competitive, with a cost reduction in their installations due, mainly, to a lower maintenance cost, and the improvement of the efficiency in the power lines designed by using these tools, called CALPE and InDiCa. In this paper, CALPE and InDiCA are introduced from the beginning of the collaboration till the latest versions: history, mechanical functionalities, computing issues, etc.