Efficient simulation of railway pantograph/catenary interaction using pantograph-fixed coordinates

In this paper, a novel approach for the simulation of the railway catenary and pantograph dynamics is proposed. The partial differential equations describing the vertical motion of the contact and carrier wires of the catenary are transformed in such a way that the pantograph is at rest with respect to the new moving coordinate. The computational domain is then truncated and absorbing boundary conditions are applied. High computational performance due to a great reduction in variables is achieved. The differences between this small scale system and a reference system with a fixed catenary length and a moving pantograph are investigated.