Fatigue life evaluation on key components of high-speed railway catenary system

Abstract

The fatigue load spectrum and operation life evaluation of key components in the catenary system under the high speed train running condition were investigated. Firstly, based on the catenary model and pantograph model, the couple dynamic equations of pantograph—catenary were built with the Lagrange’s method; then the dynamic contact force was obtained by the Newmark method at the train speeds of 250, 280 and 300 km/h, respectively. Secondly, the finite element model (FEM) of one anchor section’s catenary was built to analyze its transient response under the contact force as train running; then the loading time history of messenger wire base, steady arm, registration tube, oblique cantilever, and straight cantilever were extracted. Finally, the key components’ fatigue spectrum was carried out by the rain-flow counting method, and operation life was estimated in consideration of such coefficients, such as stress concentration, shape and dimension, surface treatment. The results show that the fatigue life of the catenary system reduces with the increasing of train speed; specifically, the evaluated fatigue life of the steady arm is shorter than other components.