Influence of faults in electric railway systems

Under normal operation conditions, assessing the condition of a railway system is quite simple. However, when a fault occurs, the analysis will be more complicated and, at the same time, much more important due to the conclusions which could be inferred from the results achieved in the analysis. This paper presents a simulation of an electric traction system, with double conversion AC/DC and DC/AC to fed AC traction motors, using the MATLAB/SIMULINK package. It has been analysed, in a fault situation, the mutual influence between an electric traction system and the distribution network it is connected to. The aim of this simulation is the optimisation of protection systems to avoid undesirable effects in both the distribution network and the traction system as a consequence of a fault situation in the traction system. This optimisation will be possible if a deep knowledge, about fault currents in different operation conditions, is achieved.