Case study of effective current estimation in main circuit of tram vehicle

Abstract

Currently the trams are experiencing the renaissance and more and more Polish cities decide to renew the fleet. New vehicles are usually characterized by high transport capacity, low floor, climate comfort, crash resistance, low energy consumption and low axle loads. Such requirements can only be achieved through optimization in many areas of the vehicle's construction. One of such tasks is the optimal selection of components of the main circuit installation and traction needs. The paper is oriented on the issue of engineering modelling of the effective values of currents flowing in the main circuit and the tramway traction needs circuits. Due to the non-periodic nature of the vehicle traffic loads in urban traffic, the optimal selection of the performance parameters helps in better selection of conductor cross sections, filters and safeguards. A better selection of these components means a reduction of its weight, which is extremely important for meet basic requirements of modern tram vehicles. The paper is intended to gather the experience of authors in this field of knowledge and compares several modelling strategies that the authors use during designing tram vehicles. The elaboration summarizes the results obtained using different modelling strategies, and shows correlation between effective value and selection of components.