The Effects of Spatially Distributed Damping on the Contact Force in Railway Pantograph-Catenary Interactions

According to field measurements, the damping ratio of a railway catenary varies along span length and shows an inherent uncertainty. In numerical simulations, it is common assume constant ratio. Herein, methodology proposed include variable in simulations pantograph-catenary interactions. The ratios are extracted from measurement uplifts critical points span, including droppers, steady arm, stitch wires. absolute nodal coordinate formulation (ANCF) utilized model catenary. geometric nonlinearity contact messenger wires, dropper slackness initial configuration appropriately described. coefficients each element within one obtained by interpolation using smoothing splines. A time step adopted accurately capture loss duration. analysis indicates that variation mainly affects local behaviors forces with high cutoff frequencies. Particularly, trailing pantograph duration evaluated significantly different result assumed follow Gaussian distribution, which mean standard deviation multiple measurements. stochastic results show uncertainty should be considered when evaluating high-frequency maximum force at speed. Otherwise, large error may expected