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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 25, NO. 3, JULY 2010

Analysis of Rail Potential and Stray Currents in a Direct-Current Transit System

Yii-Shen Tzeng and Chien-Hsing Lee, Senior Member, IEEE
AbstractThe diode-grounded scheme for stray-current collection in some systems, such as the Taipei rapid transit systems (TRTS), has been constructed to gather the stray current leaking from the running rails and avoid corrosion damage to the system as well as the surrounding metallic objects. During operation of the TRTS, a high potential between the negative return bus and system earth bus at traction substations, referred to as rail potential, has been observed on the Blue line between BL13 and BL16. Since the Blue and Red-Green lines have their running rails and stray-current collector mats in junction at the G11 station, the TRTS suspects that the impedance bond at G11 is the cause of rail potential rise. This paper presents the results of eld tests for studying whether the impedance bond at G11 of the tie line has an impact on rail potential and stray currents in TRTS. The results show the rail potential can be reduced by disconnecting the impedance bond at G11 of the tie line so that the negative return current of the Blue line cannot ow to the rails of the Red-Green Line, and vice-versa. In addition, rail potential and stray currents occurring at a station of the Blue line are numerically simulated by using a distributed two-layer ladder circuit model. The simulation results are compared with the eld-test results and they are consistent with each other. Index TermsDC electried railways, diode-grounded, direct grounded, rail potential, stray currents, ungrounded.

Fig. 1. Schematic representation of a stray-current return system.

I. INTRODUCTION

N SOME systems, such as Taipei rapid transit systems (TRTS), the diode-grounded scheme for stray-current collection is designed to drain the stray current (a portion of the negative return current leaking from the running rails due to the resistances of running rails and rail to ground) into the insulated traction earth bus (TEB) at a traction substation (TSS). When the stray current is found on the collector mat and returns to the TEB through the collector cable, it is called primary stray current as shown in Fig. 1. This current leaving from the running rails may cause corrosion to the rails/rail fasteners themselves and further leak into the surrounding soil and into any metallic conductors (such as the reinforcement bar in concrete) due to the limited conductivity of the collector

Manuscript received August 22, 2009; revised November 25, 2009. Current version published June 23, 2010. This work was supported by the National Science Council, Taiwan, under Grants NSC 98-2221-E-006-245 and NSC-972221-E-161-009-MY3. Paper no. TPWRD-00636-2009. Y.-S. Tzeng is with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Oriental Institute of Technology, Panchiao, Taipei 220, Taiwan (e-mail: ethan@ee.oit.edu. tw). C.-H. Lee is with the Department of Systems and Naval Mechatronic Engineering, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan 701, Taiwan (e-mail: chienlee@mail.ncku.edu.tw). Color versions of one or more of the gures in this paper are available online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. Digital Object Identier 10.1109/TPWRD.2010.2040631

mat. The sum of further leakage of the primary stray current and the uncollected primary stray current may ow back to the system earth bus (SEB) through the ground; this is called secondary stray current. This current is particularly harmful to the external infrastructure, tunnels, etc. Nevertheless, both stray currents eventually ow back to the negative return bus (NRB) if the drainage diode is at the turn-on state. The sum of these stray currents is then called the aggregate stray current. As can be observed in Fig. 1, there are three permanently installed (6000 A/30 mV), (4000 A/60 resistors, including (500 A/60 mV) which are used for measuring the mV), and negative return current, aggregate stray current, and secondary stray currents, respectively. Generally, to minimize the inuence by stray currents, a stray-current control, such as cross-bonding of the running rails and stray-current collector cables (traction earth conductors) is required to balance negative traction return currents, to reduce resistances of the negative return circuit, as well as to decrease the rail potential [1][17]. Historically, stray-current collector mats either with or without drainage diodes have been installed on a dc transit system for assessing, investigating, recording, and isolating the offending source of increased stray-current effects [8][13]. They are constructed from an assembly of driven rods and bare copper conductor. All joints are exothermically welded. Typically, the mats are located at a minimum of 1 m below the nished grade and the cross-sectional area of the collector cable is 70- or 120-mm CU [7][9]. For the code of practice in TRTS [15], it requires a collector mat of six 12-mm diameter steel-reinforcing bars to be bonded to a 120-mm Cu stray-current collector cable at 200-m intervals.

0885-8977/$26.00 2010 IEEE

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BL13 to BL16 was relatively high and close to the IEC 62128-1 limit [14], [16]; 2) the number of substations with diode-on at the Red line is always more than that of the Blue line. Moreover, there were no more than three TSSs with their drainage diodes turned on at any moment in the Red line based on the results of the stray-current monitoring system. This means that stray currents outowing from the rail sections of a total of 21 stations (R12R33) will ow back collectively to only one to three TSSs. However, the location of these TSSs may vary randomly which depends on the position and status (i.e., acceleration, coasting, or deceleration) of the multiple trains through the entire Red line. As a result, the TRTS has postulated that stray currents outowing from the rail of the Blue line could ow back to the third rail at TSSs with diode on at the Red line. Due to the long distance of stray current owing to the diode-on substation, the rail potential was thus relatively high, and close to the IEC limit. Since the Blue and Red-Green lines have their running rails and stray-current collector mats in junction at the G11 station, the eld tests of disconnecting the tie line were performed to evaluate whether the negative return current of the Blue line will ow to the rails of the Red-Green Line, and vice-versa. III. FIELD TESTS During operation of the TRTS, it has been observed that the rail potential at the Red-Green line increases by more than about 2030 V after the Blue line entered commercial operation in December 1999. Since the Blue and Red-Green lines have their running rails and stray-current collector mats in junction at the G11 station, the TRTS suspects that the impedance bond at G11 is the cause of rail potential rise. As a result, the eld tests have been performed for studying whether the impedance bond at G11 of the tie line has an impact on rail potential and stray currents in TRTS. Since the Blue line has not yet fully operated at the time of the eld test (i.e., only operated from BL01 to BL13), the selected eld test site was at BL13 TSS, which was conducted on May 4, 2001 [14]. The impedance bond at G11 was disconnected between 11:00 A.M. and 16:00 P.M.. As seen in Fig. 3, rail potentials had been lowered by almost half after disconnecting the impedance bond (i.e., the highest rail potential was about 112.5 V). This improvement was because the negative return current of the Red and Green lines cannot ow to the rails of the Blue line and vice-versa. As a result, the disconnection of the impedance bond at G11 has been implemented permanently since 2003. Moreover, the stray currents recorded at BL09 TSS as shown in Fig. 4 is utilized for assessing the performance of stray-current collection systems installed in TRTS since its measured stray currents was the highest among other stations. The straycurrent collection system efciency is dened as the ratio of a sum of the primary stray current divided by a sum of the aggregate stray current, and the stray-current leakage percentage is dened as the ratio of a sum of the secondary stray current divided by a sum of the aggregate stray current. As a result, the stray-current collection system efciency and straycurrent leakage percentage were obtained to be 40.29% and 59.71%, respectively. To increase the stray-current collection

Fig. 2. Network of the completed and planned rapid transit system in Taipei.

II. SYSTEM DESCRIPTION The completed and planned network of the TRTS is illustrated in Fig. 2. The electric power for TRTS is supplied by the Taiwan power company (TPC) through 161-kV incoming feeder units. The bulk supply substations (BSSs) connect the Metro power supply system to the public power grid, step the 161 kV down to 22.8 kV (referred to as 22 kV). Then, it distributes the 22-kV supply to the rectier substations [or traction supply substation (TSS)], to the station supply substations (SSS), and to the depots. TSS provides the energy for the traction supply and the depots. The average distance between the two TSS is about 1.5 km. Each TSS comprises medium highvoltage switchgear units, rectier transformers, rectiers, and dc-voltage switchgear units. The rectier transformers are designed to step down the voltage from 22.8 kV to 589 V for the supply of the rectiers, which convert the 589-V ac to the traction voltage of 750-V dc. The SSS provides the energy to operate auxiliary installations, such as escalators, workshops, illumination, etc. within the stations and depots. It is fed directly from the related medium high-voltage switchgear units of the allocated BSS. The power transformers step down the voltage from 22.8 kV to 380 V feeding the low-voltage switchgear. As for some important data of TRTS, such as the rating of the traction substations and location of impedance bonds, please refer to Tables IIIVI . During operation of the TRTS, two features have been observed from the supervisory control and data acquisition at the operation control center: 1) The rail potential at stations from

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Fig. 3. Measurement results of the potential at BL13 TSS during the eld test on May 4, 2001, by disconnecting the impedance bond at G11.

Fig. 5. Comparison of different welding of the collection system. (a) The structure installed by TRTS. (b) The structure suggested by Dekker.

in Fig. 5(a) in order to avoid the loop current occurring within the collection system. Thus, only one of the latitudinal steel bars in the collection mat is used to connect with the collector cable. However, this design obviously may not be able to decrease the self-resistance of the collection system. As a result, TRTS has modied the welding point of the collection system to be that as shown in Fig. 5(b), which has been suggested by Dekker [8]. IV. MODELING OF RAIL POTENTIAL AND STRAY CURRENTS Most of the computer simulations on rail potential and stray currents in a dc transit system were reported by researchers approximately ten years ago [2][4], [6], [17][20]. To precisely model the negative return circuit and the stray-current collection system, a distributed two-layer ladder circuit model is used instead of a single-layer transmission-line model. The distributed two-layer ladder model consists of the stray-current collector mat and stray-current collector cable and provides an advantage of studying the efciency of a stray-current collection system. However, the single-layer transmission-line model does not have the advantage in evaluating the stray-current collection system efciency. Moreover, a train model based on the detailed train movement simulation and dc load-ow calculation for the whole system is used instead of assuming a typical prole of the traction power as a train running between two stations [18]. Importantly, a model for determining operation states (i.e., on or off) of drainage diodes as shown in the Appendix is developed and used instead of assuming only one turn-on drainage diode for the whole system [14], [17]. Generally, the power supply of a dc transit system is classied into positive and negative circuit networks. The former consists of a positive terminal from the rectier of a TSS as well as the conductor rail, whereas the latter consists of a negative terminal from the rectier of a TSS, the running rails, and the stray-current collection system. As a result, the rail potential and stray currents are behaviors that belong to the negative circuit network. Fig. 6 shows an equivalent circuit of the dc negative network in a transit system with the ladder circuit model. The positive circuit network is assumed as a super node to simplify this study. A. Equivalent Circuit of the Negative Circuit Network as shown The train can be modeled as a current source in Fig. 6. As a train runs, its position and dissipated/regenerated power are all functions of time. Meanwhile, the output

Fig. 4. Measurement results of stray currents at BL09 TSS during the eld test.

efciency, the collection system generally has to offer a significantly lower resistance path than the segment reinforcement in a tunnel, buried services, and the surrounding soil itself [11]. The code of practice in TRTS [15] requires a minimum of 150 -km be maintained between the running rails and the earth. It also requires that the collector mat of six 12-mm diameter steel-reinforcing bars be bonded to a 120-mm Cu stray-current collector cable at 200-m intervals. Thus, for a uniform leakage along the track, the model for current leaking from the track into the stray-current collector cable is that of using resistances on a 1-m basis. Nevertheless, an effective way suggested by Dekker [8] has been utilized for reducing the resistance of the collection system in TRTS which alters the welding point of the collection system and the connection between the collection mat and the collector cable. Currently, the code of practice in TRTS requires that the longitudinal and latitudinal steel bars in the collection mat under each plinth should not form into a loop conguration as shown

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Fig. 6. Equivalent circuit of the dc negative network in a transit system.

power of the TSS rectier will change with time. Thus, the rectier and the train can be considered as stationary and nonstationary time-variant current sources, respectively. The currents and at any instant of time are dependent on the instantaneous power and voltage obtained from the train movement simulation and the dc load-ow calculation. Moreover, the negative return circuit is used to describe self and mutual resistances among the running rails, the stray-current collection system, and the ground. For example, Fig. 7 shows one of the negative return circuit segments including ve resistors , , , , and . Resistances of the mutual , , and are dependent on the degree of inresistors sulation. A segment of 100 m is sufcient and accurate for the stray current and rail potential analysis [19]. Cross-bonding cables are used at a certain distance to balance the negative return current between up and downtrack running rails, to decrease resistances of the negative return circuit, and to decrease rail poand are used to reptential. As seen in Fig. 6, resistors resent these cross-bonding cables. Similarly, stray-current collector cables located up and downtrack are crossly bonded to decrease resistances of the stray-current return path. In addition, , , and are used for measuring three shunt resistors negative return currents, aggregate stray currents, and secondary connected between stray currents, respectively. The resistor the SEB and the ground represents the ground resistance of the TSS. For the drainage diode, it can be equivalent with a current source parallel with a turn-on resistor if the diode is on. and are used to represent the Moreover, resistors resistances of cables connected up and downtrack of the NRB, and are used to respectively. Likewise, resistors represent the resistances of cables located up and downtrack of the TEB, respectively. B. Flowchart of Computing Rail Potential and Stray Currents A owchart of computer simulation on rail potential and stray currents is shown in Fig. 7, which consists of three main modules (i.e., train movement, dc load ow, and stray-current modules [21].

Fig. 7. Flowchart of computer simulation on rail potential and stray currents.

The kernel of the train movement module is the numerical integration of the motion equation. Based on the train characteristics, route data, operation parameters, and scheduled timetable, trains can be simulated sequentially and then be put on, or be removed from, the route. Each train on the route is accordingly represented as a moving bus in the dc positive network with a constant power load, which may be positive or negative depending upon its powering or braking mode. After the train movement module has been performed at each time point, the dc load-ow module calculated by using Newton-type load ow equations in the dc positive network can be executed to obtain equivalent current sources of trains and TSSs for each time point. Based on the status of TSS as well as the instantaneous power and voltage of the train at each time step, the bus current and admittance matrix, of the negative cirmatrix cuit network can be obtained by using sparse programming techis niques [22]. Then, the matrix equation solved by using the LU decomposition method. The tolerable error of bus voltages is set to be less than 0.0001 V. For each iteration, the algorithm for determining the operation states of the drainage diodes at TSSs is referred to in the Appendix. Once the bus voltages have been found from the matrix equation, currents owing through each branch in the dc negative circuit network can be computed. V. SIMULATION RESULTS The Blue line in TRTS, as shown in Fig. 2, is used as a test system here and their data are summarized in Tables IIIVI. The station substation located in the passenger station is not included in the analysis since it belongs to the ac system. Parameters of the equivalent circuit of the dc negative network

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used for the simulation are , m , , m , /km, /km, -km, -km, -km, V (turn-on voltage of the drainage m , diode), m , m , m . These data are system design parameters provided by the TRTS. The train headway is about 5 min and 40 s, which is obtained from the control center of TRTS. For evaluating stray currents, the following are dened: 1) Total stray current (TSC): the total current leaked to the ground through the running rails and the stray-current collection system at time t. 2) One-hours equivalent gross leakage charge (GLC): this is obtained by integrating the TSC against time for duration and then normalizing to one-hours equivalent [4]. Moreover, the maximum positive and negative potentials over the period of simulation time are used for assessing the rail potential. A. Effects of Grounding Strategies on Rail Potential and Stray Currents Several cases, as listed in Table I, are studied for the effects of grounding strategies on rail potential and stray currents. The scenario of Case is currently used by the Blue line. However, the grounding scheme of the extended Blue line has been modied to the diode-grounded scheme with a series of normally open switches. In other words, its grounding scheme of TSSs is ungrounded during normal operations. Fig. 8 shows the simulation results of rail potential and stray currents for Case . As seen in Fig. 8(a), a maximum aggregate stray current of 13.18 A ows back to the BL04 TSS and 94% of this current consists of primary stray currents. On the contrary, about 60% of TSCs leaked to the ground directly from the running rails as seen in Fig. 8(b), and the remaining 40% will leak to the ground from the stray-current collection system. As seen in Fig. 8(c), the maximum positive and negative potentials of the running rails are about 134.6 V and 23.4 V, respectively. To verify the proposed model of stray-current calculation, the stray currents and NRB voltage at BL04 TSS have been measured from 4:00 A.M. to 9:00 A.M. on April 16, 2007. As a result, the maximum stray current occurred between 07:01:36 to 07:02:36 as shown in Fig. 9. As seen in Fig. 9, the drainage diode was turned on for three times as the NRB voltage becomes slightly smaller than the zero voltage. Moreover, the aggregate and secondary stray currents at time 11.69 s are 57.7 A and 7.0 A, respectively. This means that the primary stray current is equal to 50.7 A at this point of time. Thus, the ratios of the primary and secondary stray currents to the aggregate stray current are 88% and 12%, respectively. Comparing the measured results as shown in Fig. 9 with the simulated values as shown in Fig. 8(a), the measured stray currents are several times greater than the simulated values. This situation may result from the deteriorated rail insulation because the Blue line has been operating commercially for more than ten years. Nevertheless, the ratios of the primary and secondary stray currents to the aggregate stray current are close to the results obtained from Fig. 8(a),

Fig. 8. Simulation results of the blue line for case a. (a) Stray currents occurred at BL04 TSS. b) Total stray current occurred at the blue line. (c) Maximum positive and negative rail potentials occurred at the blue line.

TABLE I SUMMARY OF SIMULATION CASES FOR THE TEST LINE

which are 94% and 6%, respectively. Simulation results for the other cases are summarized in Table II.

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Fig. 9. Measurement results on stray currents and NRB voltage at BL04 TSS.

TABLE II SUMMARY OF SIMULATION RESULTS FOR ALL CASES

Fig. 10. Maximum positive rail potential and total stray current with and without cross-bonding of running rails and stray-current collector cables. (a) Maximum positive potential occurred at the blue line. (b) Total stray current occurred at the blue line.

B. Effects of Cross-Bonding on Rail Potential and Stray Currents The Blue line of TRTS has 12 cross-bonding locations between the up and downtrack as well as stray-current collector cables. The cables used for cross-bonding of running rails and stray-current collector cables are 4 250 mm Cu EPR and 1 120 mm Cu EPR, respectively. Detailed cross-bonding locations are listed in the Appendix. Fig. 10 shows the maximum positive rail potential and TSC as considering whether the running rails and stray-current collector cables are cross-bonded or not. As seen from Fig. 10(a), the rail potential can be reduced from 167.6 V to 134.6 V when the running rails are cross-bonded. However, the TSC will not be effectively reduced as shown in Fig. 10(b) after cross-bonding of running rails and stray-current collector cables. C. Effects of a Short-Circuited Drainage Diode on Stray Currents Some of the drainage diodes at TSSs at the Blue line had been burned out during the system integration test. One of the reasons is the signaling worker forgetting to connect the negative return

cables to the impedance bond after the track-circuit test. As a result, the return current ows into the rails, the stray-current collection system, and the ground. Eventually, it ows back to the NRBs via the drainage diodes and the drainage diodes are overload and damaged consequently. After the capacities of diodes were changed from 1100 A to 5800 A, they were not burned out anymore. To illustrate the about event and explain possible reasons, a virtual case is presented here. If the drainage diode at BL04 TSS is assumed to be short-circuited, the grounding scheme at BL04 TSS will become direct grounded but the grounding scheme of other TSSs at the Blue line is still diode-grounded. Simulation results as shown in Fig. 11 present the effects of a short-circuited drainage diode on stray currents. As seen from Fig. 11(a), the aggregate stray current owing from the NRB to the TEB is about 636.8 A after the drainage diode has been shorted. However, the aggregate stray current owing through the BL04 TSS under normal operations is 13.2 A. Thus, if a drainage diode is shorted, the aggregate stray current owing through the TSS will increase more than several ten times. Moreover, the large aggregate stray current will not occur only at the shorted TSS but it may ow through other normally operated drainage diodes. As seen from Fig. 11(b), the aggregate stray current owing back to the BL05 TSS has been increased from 8.1 A to 360.2 A for a short-circuited drainage diode at the BL04 TSS. In addition, the total stray current will be affected in this case. As seen from Fig. 11(c), the total stray current occurring at the Blue line is about 12.9 A

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Fig. 12. Effects of rail insulation on maximum aggregate stray currents at the blue line.

Fig. 11. Effects of a short-circuited drainage diode at BL04 TSS on stray currents. (a) Aggregate stray current owing through the BL04 TSS. (b) Aggregate stray current owing back to the BL05 TSS. (c) Total stray current occurred at the Blue line.

under normal operations. After a drainage diode is shorted at the BL04 TSS, the total stray current will increase from 12.9 A to 570.2 A. D. Effects of Rail Insulation on Stray Currents This subsection investigates the effects of three rail insulation cases on stray currents. Parameters of the test system for -km, Case are the rail-to-ground resistance to be the rail-to-collector-mat resistance to be -km, and -km. the collector-mat-to-ground resistance to be The aforementioned values are the minimum-designed criteria , for the track-bed without ballast in TRTS [15]. Resistances

, and of Case are 40, 40, and - , respectively. These values are also the minimum-designed criteria for the track-bed with ballast in TRTS. For Case , the uptrack rail insulation between the BL03 and BL04 passenger stations is assumed to signicantly deteriorate at the distance of 100 to 200 m from the BL04 passenger station. This will result in being and the resistances and being the same -km and -km). as Case (i.e., Fig. 12 shows the maximum aggregate stray current owing through TSSs under the inuence of deteriorated rail insulation for Case compared with Cases and . As seen from Fig. 12, the maximum aggregate stray current will increase about six to seven times at all TSSs compared to Case with Case when the rail insulation deteriorates. The situation assumed in Case means the distance of 100 m away from the BL04 passenger station for the uptrack running rails has the ground resistance of . Compared to Case with Case , the maximum aggregate stray current owing through the BL04 TSS will decrease from 13.2 A to 8.3 A when the rail insulation deteriorates around the BL04 passenger station. Nevertheless, the maximum aggregate stray currents owing through other TSSs will increase about 6.23 to 7.74 times. The highest increase of the maximum aggregate stray currents ows through the BL05 TSS and the second highest increase of the maximum aggregate stray currents ows through the BL09 TSS (about 7.34 times). In conclusions, the lowest value of the maximum aggregate stray currents occurs at the BL04 TSS, which is the closest to the deteriorated point of the rail insulation and the largest increase of the maximum aggregate stray currents occurs at the BL05 TSS, which is the next closest to the deteriorated point of the rail insulation. This means that the stray current leaking from the rails to the ground will be obviously increased when the rail-to-ground insulation deteriorates somewhere close to a TSS. However, this increasing stray current will ow back to the further TSS, not the closer TSS. VI. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION This paper presents the results of eld tests and simulations of rail potential and stray currents at several stations of the Blue line of TRTS. Based on the results, concluding remarks have been drawn as follows. 1) Although cross-bonding running rails can effectively improve the problem of rail potential, the problem of

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TABLE III DESIGNED ELECTRICAL DATA

TABLE V CROSS-BONDING LOCATIONS OF RUNNING RAILS

TABLE IV STATION MILEPOST OF THE BLUE LINE SYSTEM

TABLE VI CROSS-BONDING LOCATIONS OF STRAY CURRENT COLLECTOR CABLES

stray currents still cannot be signicantly mitigated. As for the Blue line of TRTS, the rail potential can be reduced to about 20% from 167.4 to 134.6 V for cross-bonding running rails per 700900 m. 2) As for all TSSs using the diode-grounded scheme, the TSC and maximum rail potential will both reduce to about 10% for one of the TSSs using the direct-grounded scheme and others using ungrounded. 3) If the insulation of running rails deteriorates, the aggregate stray current owing through the TSS, which is the closest to the deteriorated point, will slightly decrease. Nevertheless, the aggregate stray current owing through other TSSs will increase. This will help maintenance workers determine the section with the deteriorated insulation of running rails. 4) On the issues of rail potential and stray currents, the diode-grounded scheme has the highest rail potential and its maximum value is about 50% higher than the rail potential obtained by the ungrounded scheme. Thus, the ungrounded scheme has less of a problem with stray currents and rail potential than the diode-grounded scheme. APPENDIX ALGORITHM FOR DETERMINING THE OPERATION STATES OF THE DRAINAGE DIODES For a diode-grounded system, each drainage diode installed at the negative network can be considered as a two-state (i.e., on and off) digital switch. Thus, a system consisting of n TSSs will

have operation states of drainage diodes. Nevertheless, only one state at an instant of time can satisfy either an on or off operation state. This paper adopts a method which is widely used in power-electronics simulation programs to distinguish discontinuous points between on and off states. As a result, for nonlinear operation characteristics of drainage diodes, one can accurately calculate the switching time between on and off states as well as obtain the operation states of drainage diodes correctly. Fig. 13 shows a owchart for nding the switching time of drainage diodes. To simplify the process, the simulation step is assumed to be small enough (e.g., 0.1 s) and the curcan be linearly aprent changes at TSSs and trains within proximated. In addition, the train position is assumed linearly changed. Based on these assumptions, the equivalent current sources of trains and TSSs as well as the train positions at an can be obtained by using the interpoinstant of time within lation method. As seen from Fig. 13, the states of drainage diodes at can be assumed to be the same as the states of drainage when it is simulated from t to . If diodes at time the calculated result shows that the operation states of drainage diodes have not been changed (i.e., no reverse current appears at the turn-on diode and the forward-biased voltage is less than the threshold turn-on voltage for the turn-off diodes), the switching instant search of drainage diodes is completed and goes back to the main program to do the simulation at the next instant of

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 25, NO. 3, JULY 2010

among all drainage diodes (i.e., the largest error of the forward-bias voltage and the threshold turn-on voltage) will rst change its operating state. during the bisection search is If the time difference s) and the largest misless than the time tolerance (e.g., match of the forward voltage of the drainage diode is less than the voltage tolerance (e.g., 10 V), the rst changing time point will then be obtained. As a result, the equivalent current sources of the train and TSS should be recalculated since the operation states of the drainage diode and the admittance matrix of the negative network have been changed. Moreover, the voltage at each bus of the negative network should be resolved to verify whether the operation states of other drainage diodes will vary at the switching instant as the circuit topology changes. The aforementioned calculation and searching processes will be continuous at the instant of changing states until all drainage diodes satisfy the operation condition. Note that when the rst switching instant is found, the circuit will be calculated based on the operation states of drainage diodes at that instant. The searching and calculation processes will be repeated until the operation states of all drainage diodes or the time have not been changed at the time of and is less than the time tolerance difference between and . REFERENCES
[1] H. E. Bomar, R. O. Dean, J. A. Hanck, M. D. Orton, and P. L. Todd, Bay area rapid transit system (BART), Mater. Perform., 1974. [2] J. G. Yu and C. J. Goodman, Modeling of rail potential rise and leakage current in dc rail transit systems, in Inst. Elect. Eng. Colloq. Stray Current Effects of DC Railways and Tramways, London, U.K., Oct. 1990, pp. 221226. [3] J. G. Yu and C. J. Goodman, Computer simulation of stray currents in dc supplied rail transit systems and their corrosive effects, in Proc. IMechE Int. Conf. Transit 2020, London, U.K., Oct. 1990, pp. 121127. [4] J. G. Yu, The effects of earthing strategies on rail potential and stray currents in dc transit railways, in Proc. Int. Conf. Developments in Mass Transit Systems, Apr. 1998, pp. 303309. [5] T. J. Barlo, A. D. Zdunek, and R. N. Johnson, Stray current corrosion in electried rail systems, Proposal of the Basic Ind. Res. Lab., pp. 93127, Jul. 1993. [6] K. J. Moody, Stray current characteristics of grounded, ungrounded, and diode grounded dc transit systems, in Proc. CORROSION/94, Baltimore, MD, Mar. 1994, pp. 331342. [7] K. S. Bahra and R. B. Catlow, Control of stray currents for dc traction systems, in Inst. Elect. Eng. Int. Conf. Electric Railways in a United Europe, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Mar. 2730, 1995, pp. 136142. [8] N. M. J. Dekker, Stray current controlAn overview of options, in Inst. Elect. Eng. Seminar on DC Traction Stray Current ControlOffer a Stray a Good Ohm?, London, U.K., Oct. 21, 1999, pp. 8/18/10. [9] F. Waterland, Stray direct current: A view from the main line, in Inst. Elect. Eng. Seminar on DC Traction Stray Current ControlOffer a Stray a Good Ohm?, London, U.K., Oct. 21, 1999, pp. 4/14/25. [10] K. D. Pham and E. S. Thomas, Analysis of stray current, track-to earth potentials & substation negative grounding in dc traction electrication system, in Proc. ASME/IEEE Joint Rail Conf., Toronto, ON, Canada, Apr. 2325, 2001, pp. 141160. [11] I. Cotton, C. A. Charalambous, P. Aylott, and P. Ernst, Stray current control in DC mass transit systems, IEEE Trans. Veh. Technol., vol. 54, no. 2, pp. 722730, Mar. 2005. [12] C. A. Charalambous and I. Cotton, Inuence of soil structures on corrosion performance of oating-DC transit systems, Inst. Eng. Technol. Electr. Power Appl., vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 916, Jan. 2007. [13] C. A. Charalambous, I. Cotton, and P. Aylott, A simulation tool to predict the impact of soil topologies on coupling between a light rail system and buried third-party infrastructure, IEEE Trans. Veh. Technol., vol. 57, no. 3, pp. 14041416, May 2008.

Fig. 13. Flowchart for determining the operation states of drainage diodes.

time. However, if the calculated result shows that the operation states of one or more drainage diodes are not satised (i.e., a reverse current appears at the turn-on diode or a forward-biased voltage is greater than the threshold turn-on voltage for the turn-off diodes), this means at least one of the drainage diodes . Generally, a has changed its operation state from t to (i.e., bisection method is used to search the switching time ) for the earliest changing state of the drainage diode. When a system consisted of many drainage diodes, it is possible that more than one drainage diode can have its opera. Since the curtion states change within a simulation step rent sources and train position are assumed to be changed linearly, the diode with the largest mismatch of the forward voltage

TZENG AND LEE: ANALYSIS OF RAIL POTENTIAL AND STRAY CURRENTS

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[14] S. H. Chen, S. C. Hsu, C. T. Tseng, K. H. Yan, H. Y. Chou, and T. M. Too, Analysis of rail potential and stray current for Taipei metro, IEEE Trans. Veh. Technol., vol. 55, no. 1, pp. 6775, Jan. 2006. [15] Dept. Rapid Transit Systems Taipei R.O.C., Code of practice for earthing, bonding and corrosion protection, 1993. [16] B.-Y Ku and T. Hsu, Computation and validation of rail-to-earth potential for diode-grounded dc traction system at Taipei rapid transit system, in Proc. ASME/IEEE Joint Rail Conf., Apr. 68, 2004, pp. 4146. [17] Y. C. Liu and J. F. Chen, Control scheme for reducing rail potential and stray current in mrt systems, Proc. Inst. Elect. Eng., Elect. Power Appl., vol. 152, no. 3, pp. 612618, May 2005. [18] C. H. Lee and H. M. Wang, Effects of grounding schemes on rail potential and stray currents in Taipei rail transit systems, Proc. Inst. Elect. Eng., Elect. Power Appl., vol. 148, no. 2, pp. 148154, Mar. 2001. [19] C. S. Change and L. F. Tian, Worst-case identication of touch voltage and stray current of dc railway system using genetic algorithm, Proc. Inst. Elect. Eng., Electr. Power Appl., vol. 146, no. 5, pp. 570576, 1999. [20] Y. Cai, M. R. Irving, and S. H. Case, Modeling and numerical solution of multibranched dc rail traction power systems, Proc. Inst. Elect. Eng., Electr. Power Appl., vol. 142, no. 5, pp. 323328, 1995. [21] Y. S. Tzeng, DCRAILA power system simulator for dc electried railways, in Proc. World Metro Symp., Taipei, Taiwan, 2002, pp. 332337. [22] W. F. Tinney and J. Walker, Direct solution of sparse network equations by optimally ordered triangular factorization, Proc. IEEE, vol. 55, no. 11, pp. 18011809, Nov. 1967.

Yii-Shen Tzeng was born in Taiwan in 1966. He received the B.S.E.E. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the National Taiwan Institute of Technology in 1991 and 1995, respectively. Currently, he is an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering, Oriental Institute of Technology, Panchiao, Taiwan. His research interests include the converter modeling and the planning and operation of rapid-transit power systems.

Chien-Hsing Lee (S93-M98SM06) received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering from Arizona State University, Tempe, in 1993 and the M.S.E.E. and Ph.D. degrees from the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, in 1995 and 1998, respectively. Currently, he is an Associate Professor at National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan. His research interests are power system grounding analysis, power system transient modeling, and applications of wavelet theory in power systems.