AUSZUG | eb - Elektrische Bahnen 4/2016

198 Overhead Contact Line 114 (2016) Heft 4 discussed elements is a zinc layer applied by galva- nization. In connection with the fact that the galva- nizing process is often carried out in a careless way, first corrosion points on these elements may be visible already one year after installation. Another problem is high mass of the entire system, which is the reason of many complications during the instal- lation and maintenance. Additionally series of omis- sions in production facilities are reflected in a lot of geometric and technologic defects. Many foreign manufacturers produce different kinds of catenary connection elements made of dif- ferent material technologies. Main materials used by European manufacturers are: structural steel, aluminum alloy and composite materials. These el- ements are mainly dedicated to the catenary pow- ered by alternating current AC, the power system adopted in most European countries. Because of that, these elements have no optimum properties from the viewpoint of contact lines operated by di- rect current DC 3 kV and lead to a number of op- erational problems. The knowledge compendium of European solutions with different elements to mount the catenary can be found in [7]. To overcome the mentioned problems and dan- gers, new types of connections with improved operating properties were projected. They are dedicated to the new the catenary types and to replace the actual solutions with the DC 3 kV power supply. On the designed elements a simula- tion of the stress distribution was carried out with an FEM stress analysis. The solutions were tested in laboratory and in operation with real catenary cantilever models. Described work was co-financed by the Polish National Research and Development Centre. 2 New overhead contact line cantilever design Within the development work a number of different cantilever designs were drafted and analyzed which complied with the established mechanical bearing capacity criteria and parameters. The basic criterion adopted in the beginning was the dependability and reliability of a new system, its high corrosion resist- ance, fast and simple assembly by using one key type. A new overhead catenary cantilever design was developed as presented in Figure 1. The new design is based on a main profile (1), on which the cantilever support (3) is fixed. In the middle of the cantilever support another support (2) is mounted. The elements (1) and (2) are fastened to the sup- port structure by a package of insulators (9) and eye clamps (10). The registration arm (4) carrying the steady arms is mounted to the main profile (1). The 3 2 1 1 2 3 5 900 2850 – 3150 2000 1700 6 7 10 8 9 Figure 1: New cantilever design [8; 11; 12]. 1 main profile 2 supporting strut 3 cantilever support 4 registration arm 5 track axis 6 catenary wire 7 stitch wire 8 contact wire 9 eye clamps 10 brackets Figure 2: Connections in the new cantilever [8; 11; 12]. 1 connection of main profile and registration arm 2 connection of supporting strut and cantilever support 3 connection between main profile and cantilever support