Development of a slip and slide simulator for electric locomotive based on inverter-controlled induction motor

In this paper, a slip and slide simulator is proposed to simulate the dynamic behavior of the electric locomotive. The simulator consists of two inverter-controlled AC motors directly coupled with each other. One motor plays a role of traction motor of electric locomotive, other one is to use to simulate various driving characteristics of railway vehicle including adhesive characteristics, running resistance and gradient. First, the adhesive characteristics of wheel-rail system are analyzed and dynamic model of a single axle model of vehicle is presented in this paper. The torque-speed characteristics of a locomotive are physically implemented by an induction motor drive. Induction motor's torque is controlled by the indirect field oriented control strategy. In addition, a inverse dynamic model is adopted to simulate the dynamic mechanical performance of actual traction system which its inertia is larger than the testing system. At last the simulation results show that this scheme is viable and accurate.