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

Digital modelling systems are capable of providing highly accurate information 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 therefore always an advantage to be able to verify the accuracy of the model by an alternative technique. The digital CAD package, SABER, has been used for modelling the behaviour of 25 kV electrified railway systems. In order to validate the results of this package, comparative studies have been made using a physical simulator. The models for the physical simulator, although to some extent simplified, nevertheless include all the real and important aspects of the full scale equipment. The results given in this paper concern a 75 km railway system which includes static var compensators (SVCs) to enable the traction system to carry heavier train loads over longer distances than normal. The SVC includes thyristor controlled reactors (TCRs) which are controlled using a phase locked loop technique. The simulated results from the two modelling systems are in good agreement.