Development of Lighter Push-pull Arm for Speedup
Yasukazu FUJII, Masatoshi SHIMIZU, Yasushi OURA
It is desirable to improve push-pull arms because contact force and contact wire stress become
greater with presence of push-pull arms at support points when train speed exeeds 300km/h. Earlier
we investigated the effect of equivalent mass at support points on current collection in a simulation
test of overhead catenary and pantograph system. From this simulation it is clear equivalent mass
of push-pull arms must be smaller than half that of present push-pull arms to reduce contact wire
stress and so on. We have developed a new lighter push-pull arm whose equivalent mass is 47% that
of present push-pull arms and confirmed in a field test that the lighter push-pull arm can reduce
contact wire stress at support points. This paper describes results of simulation and field tests
of the lighter push-pull arm.