This paper proposes a new simulation method for contact loss when high voltage bus cables are used in a DC feeding system. To reduce the arcs caused by contact loss, two pantographs are connected by high voltage bus cables which make a closed circuit with a contact wire and the pantographs. However, it has not sufficiently been made clear that the increase of this closed circuit inductance and pantograph current lessens the arc reduction effect. Although the performance of overhead contact-line-pantograph systems in collecting electric current is evaluated by checking the contact loss when high voltage bus cables are used, no quantitative study has been made of the detection accuracy of contact loss measurement methods. The author has developed a simulation method for contact loss having an exponential distribution, and determined quantitatively the amount of arc reduction and the detection accuracy of contact loss measurement methods by applying this simulation method.

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