The sliding electric contact that is established between the catenary wire and pantograph slider serves as the primary mechanism through which contemporary high-speed railway trains obtain their driving energy. The wear resistance of both the sliders and contact wires significantly influences their service life. This paper reports an experimental investigation into the electrical tribological characteristics of a copper–silver alloy contact wire in conjunction with a novel pure carbon slider, conducted under AC 300–500 A at sliding velocities ranging from 150 to 250 km/h. The experimental tests reveal that the coefficient of friction changes from 0.20 to 0.28, and the wear rate of the sliders varies from 0.0028 to 0.0147 g/km. The observed wear mechanisms for the slider encompass arc ablation, abrasive wear, delamination wear, and adhesive wear.

An exact analytical model based on three-dimensional (3D) thermo-elasticity theory is developed to investigate the bending behavior of fiber metal laminate (FML) plates under thermo-mechanical load. The temperature-dependent properties and the orthotropy of the component materials are considered in this model. The analytical model is based on the heat conduction theory and thermoelasticity theory, and the solutions are determined by employing the Fourier series expansion, the state space approach and the transfer matrix method. Comparison study shows that the FE results are generally in good agreement with the present analytical solutions, exhibiting relative errors of less than 2%, except in the regions near the upper and lower surfaces. The present solution is close to the experimental values for the laminated plate within the linear range, with errors less than 10%. The decoupling analysis indicates that the thermo-mechanical performance of FML plates no longer strictly adheres to the traditional superposition principle, with errors reaching 30.39%. A modified principle accounting for modulus degradation is introduced to address this discrepancy. Furthermore, parametric studies reveal that the temperature and the lamina number have significant effect on the stresses and displacements of the FML plate.

The fatigue behavior of a high-strength bearing steel tempered under three different temperatures was investigated with ultrasonic frequency and conventional frequency loading. Three kinds of specimens with various yield strengths exhibited obvious higher fatigue strengths under ultrasonic frequency loading. Then, a 2D crystal plasticity finite element method was adopted to simulate the local stress distribution under different applied loads and loading frequencies. Simulations showed that the maximum residual local stress was much smaller under ultrasonic frequency loading in contrast to that under conventional frequency at the same applied load. It was also revealed that the maximum local stress increases with the applied load under both loading frequencies. The accumulated plastic strain was adopted as a fatigue indicator parameter to characterize the frequency effect, which was several orders smaller than that obtained under conventional loading frequencies when the applied load was fixed. The increment of accumulated plastic strain and the load stress amplitude exhibited a linear relationship in the double logarithmic coordinate system, and an improved fatigue life prediction model was established.

Transient arcing often occurs as an electric locomotive traverses an electrical sectioning overlap (ESO), deteriorating current collection stability and reducing the durability of the pantograph–catenary (PC) system. In this study, the formation mechanism and electrical evolution characteristics of transient arcing in the ESO region are investigated through theoretical analysis and numerical simulations. First, based on the dynamic motion of the locomotive passing through the ESO, the transient arcing mechanism of the ESO is clarified, and the plasma characteristics of the arc are described. Then, the electromagnetic, airflow, and thermal field interactions within the PC contact gap during arc ignition are analyzed. A Multiphysics coupled PC arc model is developed, incorporating aerodynamic, electromagnetic, and heat transfer effects. Subsequently, finite element meshing and boundary conditions are applied to simulate the transient evolution of the ESO arc. Finally, the transient arcing characteristics of the ESO are analyzed. The results indicate that the current density is highly concentrated at the initial arcing stage and gradually forms an axially symmetric conductive channel (approximately 10⁷ A/m²), which shifts upward as the contact gap increases. Moreover, due to the geometric discontinuity of the ESO, a strong localized electric field develops near the wire edge, leading to arc root migration and reignition.

The fault records of traction power supply equipment contain rich historical fault processing experience, which is of great significance to the fault handling of traction power supply equipment. However, the fault records of TPSE are unstructured text data, and manual processing of them is time-consuming, labor-intensive, and inefficient. Therefore, the fault records have long been left idle in data systems, lacking exploration and application. In view of this situation, this paper proposes an entity information recognition method for fault records based on the BERT-BiLSTM-CRF algorithm, achieving automated and efficient mining of fault record information. Subsequently, based on the recognized entity information from fault records, a knowledge graph for traction power supply equipment fault handling is constructed. Finally, the retrieval capability of the knowledge graph is improved through an entity similarity-based fast retrieval algorithm, and a decision-making method for fault handling in traction power supply equipment is proposed. This method can quickly associate and recommend similar historical fault handling cases for current equipment faults, thus facilitating knowledge sharing and assisting in enhancing the efficiency and intelligence level of fault handling for maintenance operators.

The frequent occurrence of the pantograph–catenary (PC) arc seriously threatens the safe and stable operation of electric multiple units (EMUs). In order to investigate the primary factors affecting the electrical characteristics of the PC arc, this paper first reveals the mechanism of arc generation when EMUs leave the split-zone insulator according to the actual mechanical structure of the PC articulated split-zone insulator. Then, based on the Habedank black box arc model, considering the dynamic changes in arc length during the actual operation of EMUs, a numerical simulation model suitable for describing the PC articulated split-zone insulator arc is established. Furthermore, by comparing with existing research results, the effectiveness of the proposed model is verified. Next, a series of simulation experiments were conducted to analyze the influence of different operating parameters of the EMUs on the electrical characteristics of the PC arc. More importantly, the paper proposes using the entropy weight method to calculate the impact strength of different operating parameters of the EMUs on the arc duration time of the contact wire split-zone region. The research results of this paper can provide some technical references for reducing the erosion of the PC contact wire and slide caused by arcs when the EMUs pass through the split-zone insulator.