Study of the Effects of Regenerative Braking System on a Hybrid Diagnostic Train

Abstract

Nowadays, mobility represents a key sector to achieve the goal of carbon neutrality. Indeed, the development of hybrid powertrains is contributing to a reduction in the environmental impact of vehicles. One of the most promising energy-saving solutions is regenerative braking, which enables deceleration while recovering energy, otherwise wasted. Even though much scientific community effort has been addressed to the optimization of this technology in the automotive field, the increase of energy storage systems efficiencies enables the overcoming of the constraints related to the reuse of electric energy in railway vehicles. This solution could be extremely useful for those railway vehicles which operate on non-electrified lines, where traction is usually provided by diesel engines. For this reason, the present work focuses on how regenerative braking technology could be exploited in diesel-powered rail applications. In further detail, a diagnostic train working on real railway lines has been considered as a case study. Given the real duty-cycle of the vehicle, a simulation model has been developed with the aim of evaluating the amount of energy recovered during braking phases and, consequently, the fuel saving and the avoided CO2 emissions. As a result, the analysis shows an improved energy efficiency of propulsion system. Compared with a pure diesel operation, it leads to fuel savings of 20%, a reduction of CO2 emissions of 22.3 kg with 23.25 kWh stored in the battery at the end of the route.

Research on the Energy Management Strategy of a Hybrid Energy Storage Type Railway Power Conditioner System

“…P Z is the total active power of the load, which is equal to the sum of the active power of the load in the left and right supply arms. If the direction of the arrow in Figure 1 is specified as the positive direction of power flow, the power relationship between the system components is:    P Z = P L + P R = P tL + P tR + P cL + P cR P g = P tL + P tR P es = P cL + P cR = P bat + P sc (1) Energies 2023, 16, 5759 4 of 16…”

“…Nowadays, "low-carbon development" has become an important concept in global economic development and the implementation of low-carbon transportation is one of the important measures [1,2]. High-speed railways have become an important way of lowcarbon transportation due to their advantages of energy saving, environmental protection, and convenience [3,4].…”

An Energy Flow Control Algorithm of Regenerative Braking for Trams Based on Pontryagin’s Minimum Principle

“…The advantage of this type of device is the possibility of autonomous driving, provided the device is properly sized. The paper in [16] examines the effects of installing a mobile energy storage device in a diesel-electric train and shows the possibility of fuel savings of up to 20%. The paper in [17] presents the use of a mobile energy storage device to reduce peak current values using a genetic algorithm, resulting in a 63.49% reduction in peak current and 15.56% energy savings in substations.…”