COMPARISON OF PHYSICAL AND DIGITAL MODELING TECHNIQUES FOR A COMPENSATED RAILWAY SYSTEM

Digital modelling systems are capable of providing highly accurate inf ormation about the systems which they describe. A disadvantage of such models is that, if there are flaws in the model representation or if certain features have been oversimplified or omitted, the results can be totally different from the behaviour of the real system. It is ther efore always an advantage to be able to verify the accuracy of the mod el by an alternative technique. The digital CAD package, SABER, has be en used for modelling the behaviour of 25 kV electrified railway syste ms. In order to validate the results of this package, comparative stud ies have been made using a physical simulator. The models for the phys ical simulator, although to some extent simplified, nevertheless inclu de all the real and important aspects of the full scale equipment. The results given in this paper concern a 75 km railway system which incl udes static var compensators (SVCs) to enable the traction system to c arry heavier train loads over longer distances than normal. The SVC in cludes thyristor controlled reactors (TCRs) which are controlled using a phase locked loop technique. The simulated results from the two mod elling systems are in good agreement.