Stability of Low-Frequency AC Railways : Models and Transient Stability

Abstract: Low-frequency AC railway grids are unique in the sense that a only few countries around the world uses them, still however, they are an important parts of their countries infrastructures. Due to the usage of a dierent frequency than the public grid of the country, conversion of frequency is needed for the interconnection. The frequency conversion is done by machine based rotary frequency converters or power electronic based static frequency converters.When reinforcing with new power conversion capacity, mostly static frequency converters are installed since rotary frequency converters for railways have not been manufactured for some time. As more static frequency converterare introduced, the share of rotary frequency converters is reduced. It is not well explored how the stability of low-frequency AC railways is affected with a large share of static frequency converters.In this thesis, the main goal has been to obtain knowledge of the stability of low-frequency AC railway grids, with focus on synchronous ones. The electromechanical stability of a synchronous low-frequency AC railway is explored through numerical simulations, where the transient stability is the main focus.The main contributions of this thesis is proposing a model of a rotary frequency converter, proposing a model of a static frequency converter, and transient stability simulations. The model of the rotary frequency converter uses established machine models, whereas the static frequency converter model has been developed with help of measurements. It can be concluded that the proposed static frequency converter model captures the main behaviour of the measurements of a static frequency converter.The transient stability of synchronous AC railway grids is studied, through numerical simulations. The studied cases are for instance dierent railway grid congurations with dierent types rotary frequency converters and railway grids with mixes of static frequency converters and static frequency converter.The main conclusion is that the rotary frequency converter fed synchronous railway grids studied are transiently stable, and the studied railway grids where rotary frequency converters are gradually replaced with static frequency converter are also transiently stable. However, it was found that the studied railway grids obtain a heavier oscillatory behaviour when there is a mix of rotary frequency converters and static frequency converters.