A Simulation Tool for Sizing Electrical Railway Lines

Railway transport market necessities demand a speed increase of medium and long distance circulations. The commitment with environment and the saturation of the European airspace explain the present success of the European high speed railway lines and specially the Spanish High Speed Lines thanks to the courageous plan of investments that foretells a promising future for this sector. In order to reach greater speed in a more rational, economic and systematic way, the use of mathematical model based simulation tools that allow simulating the behaviour of the system in a trustworthy and economic form are a must. Railway lines’ requirements until now were based in proven veteran designs. Nevertheless the current demands are enormous and the use of computer tools to study the electrical behavior to reach the objective is unavoidable. Thus, simulation tools permits the calculation of the technical characteristics of the electrification system by obtaining the necessary physical magnitudes to evaluate correct operation and correctly sizing of the elements that are part of the electrification system.