Influence of Wave Motion of Contact Wire on Contact Force Fluctuation. 2nd Report. Experiments in practical catenary-pantograph system.

For high-speed operation of an electric railway, the contact loss of the pantograph is one of the important subjects. In 1st report on this research, through theoretical analyses and fundamental experiments, it is confirmed that the magnitude of the contact force fluctuation is proportional to the vertical velocity amplitude of the incident wave to the pantograph. In order to investigate the influence of the wave motion in a practical catenary-pantograph system, running experiments in the laboratory and field tests on Shinkansen line are carried out. From the results thereof, it is found that the backward wave incident to the pantograph is much more influential than the forward wave, and that the influence of the wave motion on the contact force fluctuation is large comparatively. A hanger developed to have spring and damping mechanism is found effective for reducing the wave motion of the contact wire incident to the pantograph and decreasing the contact loss ratio. It is expected that damping catenary vibration will contribute to speed-up in electric railway.