Scientific paper ID 2136 : 2021/3

AC OCLS are special constructions and their main purpose is to transmit electricity from traction substations (TP) to electrical loads. They supply electric vehicles by making continuous electrical contact between the catenary and the pantograph of the vehicle. Traction contact networks operate in extremely severe meteorological and operational conditions, and they are constantly exposed to various constant and variable electrical and mechanical forces caused by heating, own weight, wire tension, pantograph pressure, etc. They are operated outdoors, due to which they are aggressively affected by atmospheric factors - temperature changes, wind, snow and icing.

The meteorological conditions during the winter period support the icing of the conductors, in particular the formation of an ice shell (crust) on the contact conductor. In this way, the current collection deteriorates, which in turn is a prerequisite for the violation of the traffic schedule and the capacity of the section of the railway infrastructure.

Although in the last few years in our country the winter periods are not so aggressive, there are problematic railway sections in which the ice formation on the contact wire is significant and creates the problems described above. A number of mechanical and electrical methods for combating ice formation on the catenary are known.

For the purposes of the study, a specific problematic section of the contact network of railway transport in our country was selected, characterized by frequent icing of the contact wire and violation of the traffic schedule. In this report (part I), specific parameters limiting the ice formation at selected connection of the traction substations to the power system and the traction catenary are investigated. A variant of power supply of the section at phased substations has been chosen. Due to the impossibility to perform the research in real operating conditions, a method was chosen by modeling the studied object with its real parameters in the Matlab environment. Verification of the obtained results was made with those of the conducted analytical research.