The Effects of Load Location on Dropper Stress in a Catenary System for a High-Speed Railway

In this paper, the effects of load location on dropper stress are studied. We treat contact wire as a beam element and derive its response equation and then deduce the stress equation of dropper. A computer code based on MATLAB is written to calculate dropper stress using the finite difference method. The results show that there are three stages during the period of the stress changes of dropper, including instant rebound, damped sinusoidal vibration, and bending compression. The shorter the distance away from a load is, the larger the vertical displacement of the dropper is, which results in the corresponding increases of its stress amplitude and the maximum tensile stress. The load location has a significant impact on the stress changes of dropper. Compared to the condition of the load in the middle, the load acting on the edge of contact wire could induce the larger tensile stress when both ends of contact wire are considered as free boundaries. Therefore, it is necessary to add supports at both ends.