6.3 Prospects on study of technical standard
The technical standards on high-speed pantograph–catenary current collection quality and service performance are necessary to be improved. Standards for current practice adopt the statistical minimal value to evaluate the contact loss, which, however, is very simple and cannot consider the complex circumstances. Hence in the future, various dimensions of data should be analyzed according to the characteristics of catenary. A improved standard should be proposed to evaluate the current collection quality and service performance, which should include the following three aspects:
1. Wave propagation along catenary: The highest wave propagation speed is a critical index to determine the highest driving speed of a train. Because the maximum wave propagation speed is very close to the driving speed of trains, improving the utilization rate of wave speed for existing railways is imperative. Therefore, the wave propagation should be studied considering the effect of different components and different working conditions. The reflection and transmission coefficients in the dropper/registration points should be standardized for the optimization of the existing railway catenary.
2. The prediction of the fatigue and wear of contact wire: The previous studies mainly predict the fatigue of contact wire to evaluate the service performance of catenary, but the prediction accuracy of fatigue has not been verified. Therefore, the spectrum of catenary load should be studied in detail; the predictions of fatigue and wear should be standardized according to the real characteristics of catenary.
3. Standard of evaluating current collection quality: Referring to EN 50318, higher speed level and more complex circumstances should be considered for new evaluation standard of the current collection quality. Time–frequency analysis method should be adopted to reveal the factors influencing the separation between the pantograph and the catenary. The new standard should be proposed from multiple perspectives.