Effect of Voltage Limiting Device Operation on Rail Potential and Stray Current in DC Railway Systems

• Main Author: Kampeerawat W.
• Other Authors: Mahidol University
• Format: Article
• Published: 2023
• Subjects: Energy
• Online Access: https://repository.li.mahidol.ac.th/handle/123456789/81840

This paper presents the effect of voltage limiting devices (VLD) operation on the rail potential and stray current in DC railway system. The objective of the study is to simulate and consider the variation in the rail potential and the generated stray current at the VLD installed location while the train is operated under normal conditions. In the study, 3 factors are selected for the simulation i.e., time duration of VLD operation, variation of the running rail resistance, and variation of the ground resistance. According to the simulation results, the operating time of VLD affects the duration of suppressing the rail potential, and the stray current can possibly increase to a surprising value during the VLD operation. The running rail resistance significantly affects the rail potential and stray current. Moreover, the variation in rail resistance may affect the operating time duration when the rail potential exceeds the threshold of VLD. The resistance of ground system has a slight effect on rail potential while it still affects significantly on the stray current.