Design and analysis of an eddy current brake for a high-speed railway train with constant torque control

The introduction of the eddy current brake (ECB) system in high-speed railway train (HSRT) is known to be advantageous, in that the system is independent of wheel-rail adhesion coefficient which is greatly affected by weather condition. It also minimizes the maintenance of the brake system and does not require any additional electric energy because it is powered from the regenerated power at the time of the braking. In this study, a downscaled ECB magnet is designed and the braking and attraction forces of the ECB are simulated by 2-D FEM. The simulation results are experimentally verified on a downscaled prototype. A control algorithm of the ECB is proposed to generate constant braking torque using linear variation of the reference current according to speed. Experimental results show that the constant torque is generated all over the operating speed-range by the developed control algorithm.