Condition monitoring of pantograph contact strip

A common issue in electric railway operation is the wear of the pantograph contact strip. This is especially pronounced with ice or rime frost on the overhead line that causes arcing between the contact strip and the contact wire. To monitor the contact strip it is possible to utilise the fact that arcing between the contact strip and the overhead line generates a DC component in the AC locomotive current. The paper presents a method for condition based maintenance of the contact strip. The wear of the contact strip is predicted by monitoring the running distance of the pantograph as well as the DC component of the locomotive current. To evaluate the method, measurements have been carried out on a Swedish Re locomotive during winter conditions.