Although wear of contact wire is one of the most important problems in the catenary system maintenance, the wear mechanism of contact wire is very complicated, and there are many unsolved matters. We have started to research the quantitative effect of the pantograph contact force and the arc due to contact loss on the contact wire wear. However, the contact force of all pantographs which generate the contact wire wear in the measurement section must be measured in order to clarify the mechanism of contact wire wear. Measurement of the pantograph contact force by the inspection car is insufficient. The authors are developing the method which measures contact force of all pantographs passing the measurement section by placing sensors on catenary.
  In this paper, the calculation and the experimental results of this measurement method are reported. The result of the research shows that this measurement method with sensors on catenary can measure the contact force up to 15Hz. It also indicates that the measurable frequency of the contact force depends on the number of sensors arrayed in the measurement section.

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