Study of the Electromagnetic Environment in Electrified Railroad Sections

Abstract

Systems of monitoring railroad sections for freeness, as well as systems of transferring information along the rails to train locomotives and between signal points of automatic blocking, operate in a complex electromagnetic environment, especially in electric propulsion sections. The equipment of these systems is affected by electromagnetic interferences in a multifactorial manner, and the causes of high-level interferences are numerous and often interrelated. The tasks one has to perform while studying the electromagnetic environment are fixing a random interference generation process, processing the array of results, and identifying the causes of interferences. The first task can be accomplished by means of digital multichannel oscilloscope recorders, as well as various kinds of current- or voltage-measuring sensors. Accomplishing the second task depends on the goal and becomes very difficult due to the multifactorial essence of interference generation. The studies were pursued in various conditions, including high-speed Sapsan train traffic sections, subway train traffic sections, and heavy train traffic sections. Mathematical descriptions are derived as the probability distribution density for several kinds of electromagnetic interference.