A Study on the Countermeasures to Suppress Harmonics in the Traction Power Supply System

철도 급전시스템에서의 고조파 해석 및 대책 연구

Modern AC electric car has PWM(Pulse Width Modulation)-controlled converters, which give rise to higher harmonics. The current harmonics injected from AC electric car is propagated through power feeding circuit, As the feeding circuit is a distributed constant circuit composed of RLC, the capacitance of the feeding circuit and the inductance on the side of power system cause a parallel resonance and a magnification of current harmonics at a specific frequency. The magnified current harmonics usually brings about various problems. That is, the current harmonics makes interference in the adjacent lines of communications and the railway signalling system. Furthermore, in case it flows on the side of power system, not only overheating and vibration at the power capacitors but also wrong operation at the protective devices can occur. Therefore, the exact assessment of the harmonic current flow must be undertaken at design and planning stage for the electric traction systems. From these point of view, this study presents an approach to model and to analyse traction power feeding system focused on the amplification of harmonic current The proposed algorithm is applied to a standard AT(Auto-transformer)-fed test system in which electric car with PWM-controlled converters is running.