Proceedings of 8th Transport Research Arena TRA 2020, April 27-30, 2020, Helsinki, Finland Rail Voltage Control by System Weakening in Electrified Railways Mehmet Turan SÖYLEMEZ a*, Süleyman AÇIKBAŞ b a Istanbul Technical University,Control and Automation Engineering Department Maslak, Istanbul, Turkey b HI-SIM Technology & Engineering, Istanbul Technical University Technopolis, Maslak, Istanbul, Turkey Abstract Controlling rail voltage especially in DC electrified railways is an important issue for safety and economic reasons. A new possibility has started to arise in controlling the rail voltages with the increased usage of current limiting function in the railway vehicles. In some cases, it could actually be possible to isolate (weaken) catenary/3 rd rail of a problematic area in order to reduce the rail voltages in that area. The vehicles in the weakened area would withdraw less current, resulting in less rail voltages. This idea forms the departure point of this paper. The paper covers the advantages and disadvantages of different techniques that can be used in controlling rail voltages and uses a realistic case study to illustrate the results with the help of a rail system simulation tool. Keywords: traction simulation, rail voltage reduction, power system sectioning, system weakening. * M. Turan SÖYLEMEZ, Tel.: +90-533-514-1730; E-mail address:
[email protected] Söylemez and Açıkbaş / TRA2020, Helsinki, Finland, April 27-30, 2020 Nomenclature TSS Traction substation RPCD Rail Potential Control Device SI Section Insulator VLD Voltage Limiting Device 1. Introduction Most of the electrified railways use rails as the return current conductor since the rails form an excellent media for conducting electrical energy.