Longitudinal and Transversal Vibration of Railway Overhead Contact System

The paper gives an overview of the methods to describe the dynamic behaviour of a catenary and pantograph systems. The aspects concerning the interaction between current collectors and overhead equipment are presented. The aim of the present paper is the modelling of railway overhead contact system outlining the significance of different physical effects occurring in this system. The coupled longitudinal and transversal vibrations are considered. The dynamic state of the investigated system is described by a non-linear set of coupled partial differential equations. The solution was obtained by means of integral transforms and numerically. General results are illustrated by a numerical example in which the effect of the waves propagation is noticeable.