A New Fatigue Life Estimation Method of Contact Wires

초록

As the repeated mechanical strain and stress caused by the gravity and discontinuous contact of contact wire and pantograph during train operation, the fatigue failure of contact wire has been considered more important than before. A stroke-based bending fatigue tester developed by Kang et al. is widely used to evaluate the fatigue characteristics of contact wire, but this tester is too cumbersome and complicated. Thus, in this paper, we applied a new fatigue life estimation method based on Juvinall’s method for estimation of S-N curve. First, the ultimate tensile strength and the axial tension fatigue test was performed with standard specimens, and the bending fatigue life for the cold drawn contact wire structure was predicted using an improved S-N curve prediction method. Finally, the test result was compared with the S-N curve estimated by this new method. As a result, the S-N curve of the contact wire can be predicted by using the S-N curve and ultimate tensile strength of cold drawn material.