3DDevelopment of pantograph contact strips for high-speed operation
  • Development and prototype manufacture of tungsten-base contact strips for operation at speeds of up to 400km/h
  • Confirmation that the wear-resistance feature of the new contact strips exceeds that of existing ones
  •    Wear on Shinkansen contact strips is known to rise substantially in line with increases in the collected current and contact loss arcs as trains run at higher speeds. Development of a contact strip material for use in high-speed operation requires improvements in wear resistance (arc resistance) against contact loss arcs in the super-high speed range.
       The RTRI performed development and prototype manufacture of a new material for iron-base sintered alloy contact strips to improve arc resistance using heat-resistant hard metal components and to increase lubrication performance in the super-high speed range.
       A current-collecting test in the 400km/h speed range on a high-speed current collection material wear-testing machine (Fig. 1) demonstrated that the new material (containing tungsten-base ingredients as heat-resistant hard metal components) features significantly improved arc resistance (although cost is about four times) and will enable a level of wear resistance exceeding that of conventional materials (Fig. 2).
       The RTRI intends to investigate the performance of this newly developed material on actual trains and study the effect of the prototype contact strips on trolley wires using the testing machine.


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