Evaluation of Efficiency for Grounding System on the Electrified Railways

전기철도 급전시스템의 매설접지 방식 유용성 평가

Recently, the Korea National Railways (KNR) is undertaking a program of electrification of the existing railway routes. In order to implement the ongoing plan, KNR authorized a preliminary engineering study of its electrical systems. This effort included a comprehensive analysis of new grounding networks. The new grounding system runs in parallel with the rails and is connected to all metal structures such as rails, overhead protection wires and substation grounding grids etc., creating an equipotential ground network. This paper presents a study on coupling levels that can disturb signaling and telecommunications in adoption of the new grounding network The simulation for the study is carried out using Matlab software, Several different scenarios are analyzed, including the load condition and a few fault conditions with different fault locations. The induced potentials on the communication cables are computed. The effect of the buried ground wires is also analyzed by comparing the results with and without the presence of the ground wires, The results presented in the paper can be used as a reference for estimating coupling levels in similar rail systems.