The wireless charging system for mining electric locomotives

Abstract

The electric vehicles development has a high potential for energy saving: an energy-saving traffic control can reduce energy resource consumption, and integration with the power grid provides the ability of daily load pattern adjustment. These features are also relevant for underground mining. The critical element of vehicle-to-grid integration is the charging infrastructure, where wireless charging is promising to develop. The implementation of such systems in underground mining is associated with energy efficiency issues and explosion safety. The article discusses the development and research of a wireless charging system for mining electric locomotive A-5.5-600-U5. The analytic hierarchy process is used for justification of the circuitry and design solution by a comparison of different technical solutions based on energy efficiency and safety criteria. A complex computer model of the wireless charging system has been developed that gives the transients in the electrical circuit of a wireless charging system and the high-frequency field density distribution near the transmitting and receiving coils in a 3D setting. An approach to ignition risk evaluation based on the analysis of high-frequency field density in the charging area between the coils of the wireless charging system is proposed. The approach using a complex computer model is applied to the developed system. The study showed that the wireless charging system for mining electric locomotives operating in the gaseous-and-dusty mine is technically feasible and there are designs in which it is explosion safe.

Keywords

• mining electric locomotives
• wireless charger
• analytic hierarchy process
• effectiveness
• explosion safety
• integrated computer model
• field density