Reliability Parameters Estimation for a Railway Catenary Power System

Reliability theory is well developed for the electric transmission and distribution networks in order to schedule the maintenance activities, and to identify the reliability-critical components. There are many studies on the reliability analysis of the electric transmission and distribution networks but less on railway power supply systems. The overhead contact line into the railways system is also an electric distribution system which supplies the electric trains. Thus, similar studies can be done for the electric railway power supply system. The study is done for a double truck rail of the Romanian Railway system with a power supply system of 25kV/50Hz, for a distance of 47 km. The registered data are considered for a period of ten years. It was estimated the contact line reliability by considering the random variables, the distribution law and the parameters of the Weibull function. It was also estimated some parameters of the reliability function (Mean Time Between Failures, Mean Time Repair, failure rate, repair rate). The law of Weibull distribution is adopted for modeling the case of the contact line considering that it assures a good agreement between the reliability theory and the experimental data containing the wear, the ageing or the random nature. The estimation of the Weibull distribution function is realized using the Baron model and MATLAB functions. It was validated the concordance between the experimental data base and the analytical model.