Multiconductor Cell Analysis of AC High Speed Railway Lines

The aim of this article is the application of Multiconductor Cell Analysis (MCA) to a very special case of a multiconductor system, i.e., the AC high-speed railway system, with 14 parallel conductors. The present matrix approach allows representing both the single elements and the entire railway system also including the high-voltage (HV) three-phase supply network. The algorithm allows computing all the steady-state regime electrical quantities (voltages, currents, and power) of each section: in particular, the ground return current, responsible for electromagnetic interferences (EMIs), can be derived by the knowledge of all the circulating currents. It is also possible to evaluate the electric unbalance impact on the supply three-phase power system given by the railway system. Eventually, two different scenarios are presented, i.e., a maximum allowable high-speed line power request and a contact-wire-to-rail short circuit.