Contact-Mechanics-Based Catenary–Pantograph Interaction Model for High-Speed Electric Railway Systems

This article introduces a contact-mechanics-based catenary–pantograph interaction model (HCM-M6) for use in high-speed electric railways in a finite element (FE) simulation framework. The contact boundary conditions are of Signorini nonlinear type, with exact constraint enforcement and no need for any predefined penalty spring. This also ensures automatic contact loss and reattachment. Critically, the addition of a massless, rigid, convex contact head to a multi-degree of freedom (MDOF) pantograph defines a surface which allows accurate contact interaction with the current wire, with the latter consisting of beam elements. A series of high-speed dynamics simulations on multispan catenaries are conducted, comparing well with known benchmarks and EN50318:2018 + A1:2022. Investigation of a two-pantograph system reveals that a trailing pantograph experiences more widely separated contact force extrema than the leading pantograph. The proposed model can easily handle simultaneous contact of the pantograph with multiple wires in overlap sections. Parametric studies reveal that the model’s predictions are robust to small changes in the uplift force and material properties. Finally, friction has only a slight effect on the filtered contact force response.