Dynamics of a Power Collector With Friction Dampers

Using the friction damper, the construction of power collector for a very high-speed railway will be considerably simplified. In this paper, the power collector with friction dampers is considered, and its dynamic characteristics are analyzed by the equivalent linearization technique. The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of Coulomb friction forces on the mean squared value of contact force variation between a contactor and a rigid collecting rail with a randomly wavy surface. A numerical example is presented, and the optimal values of Coulomb friction forces which minimize the probability that the contact force becomes negative are found as a result.