Pantograph Arcing´s Impact on Locomotive Equipments

Pantograph arcing is a common phenomenon when the pantograph head and contact wire have sliding electrical contact. With the speed up of trains, the arcing becomes particularly serious for the irregularity of catenary and tracks, vibration between catenary and pantograph. It is dangerous to the equipment in locomotives for the over-voltage and harmonic caused by the arcing. In order to deal with it, the mechanism and process of pantograph arcing has been analyzed. Over-voltage amplitude and duration caused by the arcing have been studied. Meanwhile, harmonic spectrum, current waveform distortion and their influence to traction transformer have been studied. With the above analyzing results, some effective methods to reduce the hazards have been discussed at last.