Locomotives Energy Management with Inter-Vehicle Train Couplers

The applications of energy management and prediction of the speed and distance profile for a train model is analysed. South African railways are responsible for a large proportion of the country's freight supply and demand. The modelling of the coupler mechanism between the locomotive/wagon of the train is important for validation of the in-train forces, hysteresis, speed, torque and braking/tractive effort. The integral-differential equation (IDE) in the time domain has been proposed for the free vibration of a single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) system with hysteric damping which is different from the elementary stiffness model. The longer and heavier trains mean larger in-train forces and more complicated force patterns. Friction draft gears play the roles of transmitting longitudinal forces and acting as friction dampers to dampen the in-train forces. The energy consumption model factors the track parameters, operating conditions such as acceleration, velocity and rotational inertia and train level systems modelling. Adaptive rule-based and dynamic programming are the key power control strategies. Control optimization is the approach used to generate the train speed profile with the target of minimal energy consumption subject to the constraints of braking, traction and safety speed limits. The dynamic optimization and modelling of friction draft gears to improve train energy consumption, disturbance prediction and route simulation movement is presented and validated.